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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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.%ls 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 

05t 



. 






For the utterances recorded in the fol- 
lowing pages, the individual speakers are 
alone responsible. 



/ 



\ 



PREFACE. 



The National Temperance Congress grew out of a be- 
lief in many minds that there was a vast amount of 
Temperance sentiment in the country which failed of 
power because it failed of unity. It was believed that 
there was a great host of Temperance people, differing 
on many points, indeed, but so conscientious that they 
must respect one another and so candid that they might 
learn from one another. Since it would require the union 
of all these to overthrow the intrenched Liquor Traffic 
of the nation, it seemed worth an earnest endeavor to 
see whether any common ground could be found on 
which to fight the common enemy. 

No one hoped to strike out a scheme of union at a 
blow. Hence, it was provided that the Congress should 
pass no resolutions. But it was believed that if the 
leading workers on different lines could hear each other's 
reasons and each other's objections and difficulties at 
first hand, all might find something to revise and some- 
thing to add. It seemed that even looking in each 
other's faces and hearing each other's voices would 
create a better mutual understanding and kindlier feeling, 
from which future concerted action might spring. 

How well these hopes were realized this volume tells. 
The necessary study involved in preparing this mass of 
material for the press has convinced us of its exceeding 
value. The statement of what Prohibition has done all 
the way from pioneer Maine to new Dakota ; the need of 



VI PREFACE. 

something more than Prohibition for our cities, where 
the crowded tenement-houses cry to heaven and get 
their only visible answer from hell ; the necessity of im- 
proved dw ellings for the poor, of coffee-houses and u come- 
in-rooms," are eloquently told. The political discus- 
sions, though sometimes intense, are remarkably strong, 
kind, and fair. The stories of Amendment defeats are 
full of instruction for new battles. Temperance Ed- 
ucation the Duty of the Church, as presented by such 
leaders as Mrs. Hunt and President McCosh, Dr. Buck- 
ley and Joseph Cook, will be found full of interest. Re- 
striction without License, as u The Line on which all 
Enemies of the Saloon may Unitedly do Battle," draws 
a line to which it would seem all Restrictionists without 
sacrifice of conscience may come, and where Prohibition- 
ists without sacrifice of conscience may meet them. 
"Worthy of especial mention is the remarkable paper on 
' l Alcohol a Poison," by Dr. N. S. Davis, of Chicago, 
so full, clear, and complete, and yet so wonderfully com- 
pact. If its uncontroverted teachings were but once ac- 
cepted and acted on by the medical profession and the 
public, the Temperance battle would be won. 

The reasons for the indifference and hostility of many 
laboring men alike toward Prohibition and Restriction, 
as stated by Samuel Gompers and T. B. Wakeman, are 
matters that must be thought of, and somehow dealt 
with. No one can write the history of the Temperance 
Reform in this closing century without considering the 
phases of thought here presented, and no one can be 
both a strong and wise worker in the present without 
giving them careful consideration. Statements so clear 
and vigorous as these, even if of views opposed to our 
own, are always suggestive. They serve more clearly 
to define our own thought, and commonly indicate some 
ways in which our own position or statement may be 



PREFACE. Vll 

improved. They give the great advantage, both for 
ourselves and our cause, of being able to state an oppo- 
nent's position with perfect fairness, because we take it at 
first hand. Whenever all that is good in these various 
views shall be combined, the combination will be irre- 
sistible. 

The publication has been inevitably delayed in con- 
sequence of waiting for manuscripts, returning proof to 
authors at long distances, and of the extensive cor- 
respondence required to verify names, addresses, etc., of 
individuals and societies, many of which were imper- 
fectly given. In these we believe we have now attained 
substantial accuracy, which will be appreciated by all 
who desire a faithful record of this great meeting. 

The notation of " Applause" which occurs frequently 
in the stenographic reports, is necessarily wanting in the 
manuscript addresses, and hence all mention of the ap- 
proval or disapproval of the audience has been uniformly 
omitted, except where some reference in the addresses 
required its insertion. 

The speeches are all given either from the corrected 
manuscripts of the authors or from the stenographic re- 
ports furnished expressly for this volume by the eminent 
stenographer and law reporter, Arthur B. Cook, of New 
York City. Hence those who were not present at the 
meetings can rely upon having in this volume a most, 
faithful account of all that was said and done. 

The delegates and visitors parted with the earnest 
hope that another Temperance Congress might be held 
at an early day. James C. Fernald. 



CONTENTS, 



PAGE 

Preface v 

The Call for the Congress xvii 

Programme xxi 

Rules xxiii 

WEDNESDAY MOBNING, JUNE 11. 

Opening Exercises. 1 

Election of Officers 1 

The President's Address 1 

[, Topic I. : Is State and National Prohibition Desirable 

and Feasible ? 7 

Opening Addresses, by 

Hon. Neal Dow, of Maine 8 

Secretary Robert Graham, of New York 21 

Five-Minute Speeches, by 

Judge H. B. Moulton, of Washington, D. C 27 

Hon. Edwin C. Pierce, of Rhode Island 29 

Mrs. Ada M. Bittenbender, of Washington, D. C. . . 30 

Mr. W. Jennings Demorest, of New York 36 

Mr. C. A. Hammond, of New York 39 

Professor W. C. Wilkinson, of New York 40 

Topic II.: Alcohol a Poison — Never to be Used for 
Beverage Purposes 42 

Opening Paper, by Dr. N. S. Davis, of Illinois. (Read 
by Mr. T. B. Wakeman.) 42 



X CONTEXTS. 

Five-Minute Speeches, by 

Professor Edwin V. Wright, of New York 48 

Dr. Robert Boocock, of New York 50 

Dr. T. S. Lambert, of New York 52 

Topic III. : The Battle at Omaha 53 

Opening Address, by Professor A. R. Cornwall, of 

South Dakota 53 

Fiye-Minute General Speeches, by 

Mr. Lorenzo Waugh, of California 58 

Mr. Robert Rae, of England 59 

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, JUNE 11. 

Opening Exercises 60 

Topic IV.: The Line on which all Enemies of the Sa- 
loon may Unitedly Do Battle 60 

Opening Addresses, by 

Rev. I. K. Funk, D.D., of New York 60 

Rev. W. R. Huntington, D.D., of New York 68 

General A. B. Nettleton, of Minnesota 72 

Rev. A. J. Kynett, D.D., of Pennsylvania. 84 

Five- Minute Speeches, by 

Rev. N. B. Randall, D.D. , of New York 89 

Rev. Henry B. Hudson, of New York 91 

Mr. John T. Tanner, of Alabama 93 

Major Marshall B. Bright, of New York 95 

Rev. William Fielder, of South Dakota 97 

Mrs. M. J. Washington, of West Virginia 98 

Topic V.: The Systematic Prosecution of Total Ab- 
stinence Work 100 

Opening Address, by Hon. Albert Griffin, of Kansas. 

(Head by Colonel A. S. Bacon.) 100 



CONTENTS. XI 

Five-Minute Speeches, by 

Mrs. Lucinda B. Chandler, of Illinois 108 

Hon. W. Martin Jones, of New York 112 

Topic VI. : How May the Churches Aid Most Effectively 
in the Destruction of the Liquor Traffic ? 113 

Opening Addresses, by 

Rev. James M. Buckley, D.D., of New York 113 

Joseph Cook, of Massachusetts 118 

Five-Minute Speeches, by 

Mrs. Mary T. Lathrap, of Michigan 125 

(Telegram read from the W. C. T. U., of Luzerne 

Co., Pa.) 127 

Rev J. H. Hector, of California . . . 127 

Mr. Edwin Higgins, of Maryland 129 

Rev. Charles H. Payne, D.D., of New York 130 

Rev. James C. Fernald, of New Jersey 133 

Topic VII. : The Coffee House and Other Substitutes 
for the Saloon 135 

Opening Addresses, by 

Mr. Joshua L. Bailey, of Pennsylvania 135 

Rev. S. H. Hilliard, of Massachusetts 140 

Mr. L. A. Maynard, of New York 145 

Mrs. E. D. C. Mair, of Pennsylvania 160 

Mr. Robert Graham, of New York 161 

WEDNESDAY EVENING, JUNE 11. 

Opening Exercises 161 

Address of Chairman, General Wager Swayne, of New 
York 162 

Topic VIII. : The Unbroken Package Decision 164 

Opening Address,* by Hon. Walter B. Hill, of Georgia 165 

* For Address of Hon. C. C. Boimey on this subject, see Proceedings 
of Thursday Afternoon, page 80.1. 



Xll CONTENTS. 

Five-Minute Speeches, by 

Rev. A. J. Church, D.D., of New York 174 

General O. O. Howard, of New York 175 

General Wager Swayne, of New York 176 

Secretary J. N. Stearns, of New York 178 

Topic IX. : Is High License a Remedy ? 

Opening Addresses, by 

Rev. A. A. Miner, D.D., of Massachusetts 180 

Rev. Howard Crosby, D.D., of New York 187 

THURSDAY MORNING, JUNE 12. 

Opening Exercises 193 

Topic X. : Should there be a Political Party for Pro- 
hibition ?..... 193 

Opening Addresses, by 

H. K. Carroll, LL.D., of New Jersey 193 

Rev. John Bascom, D.D., of Massachusetts 199 

Five-Minute Speeches, by 

Mr. E. p. Heath, of Texas 206 

Mrs. Susan S. Fessenden, of Massachusetts 207 

Mr. H. Clay Bascom, of New York 209 

Mr. Ne]son Williams, Jr. , of Virginia 212 

Rev. A. J. Kynett, D.D., of Pennsylvania 213 

Rev. S. H. Hilliard, of Massachusetts 214 

Topic XI.: Temperance Reform and Improved Dwell- 
ings 216 

Opening Address, by Mr. R. Fulton Cutting, of New 

York 216 

Telegrams read from : 

Algona, la 222 

Ossian, Ind 223 

Evanston, 111 223 

Warren, Pa 225 



CONTEXTS. Xlll 

Worcester, Mass 224 

Letter from Rev. T. L. Cuyler, D.D 224 

Five-Minute Speeches, by- 
Rev. Albert G. Lawson, D.D., of Massachusetts 224 

Mr. Robert Graham, of New York 226 

Topic XII. : The Temperance Reform in Great Britain. 228 

Opening Address, by Mr. Robert Rae 228 

Five-Minute Speeches on General Topics, by 

Mr. Aaron M. Powell, of New Jersey 237 

Miss Julia Colman, of New York 239 

Telegram read from Hon. George E. Foster, from 

Ottawa, Canada 241 

Memorial to House of Representatives and President 

of the United States on Original Package Decision 242 
Remarks of Dr. Kynett on Subscription for Nebraska 242 

THURSDAY AFTERNOON, JUNE 12. 

Opening Exercises 243 

Topic XIII. : Amendment Defeats in Massachusetts, 
Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island 243 

Opening Addresses, by 

Hon. H. H. Faxon, of Massachusetts 243 

Hon. Henry B. Metcalf , of Rhode Island 251 

General Henry W. Palmer, of Pennsylvania 259 

Five-Minute Speeches, by 

Rev. Ira L. Cottrell, of Rhode Island 263 

Mr. Horace Geiger, of Pennsylvania 4 265 

Miss Ann M. Edwards, of Pennsylvania 268 

Colonel H. H. Hadley, of New York 269 

Mrs. Isabel G. Shortridge, of Pennsylvania 271 

Rev. C. H. Mead, of New York 273 

Mrs. E. S.Burlingame, of Rhode Island 275 

Mr. John T. Tanner, of Alabama 277 



XIV CONTEXTS. 

Secretary John Lloyd Thomas, of New York 278 

Mrs. Mary T. Lathrap, of Michigan 279 

Topic XIV. : The Attitude of the Labor Men Toward 
the Liquor Traffic 282 

Opening Addresses, by 

President Samuel Gompers, of New York 282 

Mr. T. B. Wakeman, of New York 285 

Five-Minute Speeches, by 

Hon. Edwin C. Pierce, of Rhode Island 290 

Rev. Solomon Parsons, of New Jersey 292 

Hon. Henry B. Metcalf, of Rhode Island 294 

Rev. J. B. English, D.D., of New York 295 

Professor Edwin V. Wright, of New York 297 

Secretary John Lloyd Thomas, of New York. 299 

Two-Minute Speech, by President Samuel Gompers, 
of New York 301 

Paper on the Original Package Decision, by Hon. C. C. 
Bonney, of Illinois. (Read by Assistant Secretary 
A. R. Heath.) 302 

Topic XV. : Temperance Work Among the Young 314 

Opening Addresses, by 

Mrs. Mary H. Hunt, of Massachusetts 314 

President James McCosh, D.D., of New Jersey 322 

Rev. James H. Darlington, D.D., of New York 328 

THURSDAY EVENING, JUNE 12. 

Opening Exercises 331 

Topic XVI. : The Nebraska Amendment 332 

Opening Address, by Mrs. Mary A. Hitchcock, of Ne- 
braska 332 

Appeal for Amendment Fund, by Rev. C. H. Mead, of 
New York 338 

Subscription List 340 



CONTEXTS. XV 

Topic XVII. : Appeal to Philip Sober 343 

Address, by Joseph Cook 343 



rr 



Topic XVIII. : No Sectionalism in the Temperance 
Work 349 

Opening Address, by General Green Clay Smith, of 
Kentucky 349 

Ten-Minute Speech, by Rev. J. II. Hector, of Cali- 
fornia 356 

The President's Closing Remarks 360 

Announcement of Amount Subscribed for Nebraska. . . 361 
Mrs. Mary A. Hitchcock thanks the Congress in be- 
half of Nebraska 362 

Beuediction, by Rev. Dr. Deems 362 

APPENDIX. 

Review of the Congress, by Charles F. Deems, D.D., 

LL.D 363 

List of Delegates and Organizations Represented 379 



A Call for a National Temperance Congress. 



We, the undersigned, representing almost every shade 
of Anti-Liquor Views, believe that the time has come for 
representative Temperance people throughout the country 
to assemble together in Convention, to look into one 
another's face, to compare views frankly, to learn the whole 
ground of our agreement, and to enlarge that ground, if 
possible, by candid and friendly discussion. The Saloon is 
still here. The fight is still on. The Liquor Traffic, if 
anything, is more aggressive, more destructive than ever. 

We believe that the holding of such a helpful Conven- 
tion is practicable. Hence we ask all local, State and 
National Temperance Societies (regardless of sex or politics), 
and all churches and Sunday-schools, and other associa- 
tions which hate the Saloon, to send representatives to a 
National Temperance Congress, to be held in New York 
City, June 11th and 12th, 1890, in the Broadway Taber- 
nacle, junction of Broadway, Sixth Avenue and 34th Street. 
Mass-meetings will be held in the evening and conferences 
will be held during the day sessions. 

We urge friends everywhere to take steps immediately 
to see that every section of the country is fully represented. 
Let this be both a National Conference and a National 
Mass-meeting for the overthrow of the Liquor Traffic. We 
would be glad to have Canada also represented. 

Every person opposed to the Saloon who will present 
himself at the Congress will be welcomed as a member. 
Credentials, though convenient for use of committees, will 
not be insisted upon. Address 

JOSEPH A. BOGARDUS, Sec, 

167 Chambers St., New York, 



XV111 CALL FOR A TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 



(Signed), Charles F. Deems, 
Albert Griffin, 
I. K. Funk, 
T. B. Wakeman, 
J. A. Bogardus, 
Mary T. Burt, 
Alex. S. Bacon. 



► Committee. 



Noah Davis, 
H. K. Carroll, 
John N. Stearns, 
A. M. Powell, 
Theodore L. Curler, 
Frances E. Wiliard, 
P. M. Arthur, 
Ellen J. Phinney, 
H. M. Turner, 
H. L. Wayland, 
Geo. E. Reed, 
Joseph Cook, 
Elizabeth S. Tobey, 
John H. Vincent, 
D. H. Mann, 
Samuel Dickie, 
Wa#er Swayne, 
Clinton B. Fisk, 
R. S. MacArthur, 
W. F. Crafts, 
D. DeLeon, 
Wm. T. Wardwell, 
Wm. J. Groo, 
Francis Crawford, 
John Lloyd Thomas, 
R. S. Cheves, 
Charles E. Manierre, 
Edwin P. Lie, 
A. B. Leonard, 
Mary H. Hunt, 
Father Mahoney, 
Mary T. Lathrap, 
Ira D. San key, 
James M. King, 
George Duffield, 
Neal Dow, 
Cyrus D. Foss, 
Edward G. Andrews, 
William Daniel, 



William C. Wilkinson, 
Louise Vanderhoef, 
Fred. F. Wheeler, 
H. Clay Bascom, 
N. F. Woodbury, 
James W. Williams, 
Tallie Morgan, 
James Black, 
Josiah Strong, 
Edward Duffield, 

A. A. DeLoach, 
J. B. Gambrell, 
Horace Geiger, 
J. B. Smith, 
John Hipp, 

W. Larrabee, 
Henry B. Hudson, 
Edwin V. Wright, 
Horace Waters, 
James B. Simmons, 

B. F. Parker, 
Walter T. Mills, 

E. J. W r heeler, 
Samuel B. Forbes, 
Cornelia Forbes, 
Morris Sharp, 

J. C. Allen, 
S. B. Halliday, 
J. W. Bash ford, 
Marshall H. Bright, 
Isaac W. Joyce, 
W. X. Ninde, 
W. P. Thirkield, 
Nelson Williams, Jr., 
Edward H. East, 
J. L. Palmer, 
Samuel Fallows, 

F. W. Conrad, 
V. L. Conrad, 



CALL FOR A TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. XIX 



C. S. Woodruff, 
Robert Graham, 
R. Alder Temple, 
J. M. Walden, 
W. J. Demorest, 
S. M. Merrill, 
Mary A. Livermore, 

D. W. Wood, 

John D. Rockefeller, 
Her rick Johnson, 
R. S. Foster, 
James McCosh, 
Thomas Dixon, Jr., 
J. A. Van Fleet, 
Willard F. Mallalieu, 
J. M. Buckley, 
John Russell, 
Benson J. Lossing, 

C. H. Payne, 
Geo. W. 'Bain, 
Eugene II Clapp, 
Edward P. Ingersoll, 
W. T. Dixon, 

T. C. Cronin, 

D. C. Eddy, 
A. J. Church, 
George T. Chester, 
W. Martin Jones, 
R. D. Munger, 
Henry H. Faxon, 
Elijah A. Morse, 
Allen B. Lincoln, 
Henry B. Metcalf, 
Sarah J. C. Downs, 
Z. K. Panjrborn, 

J. C. Fernald, 
Amos Briggs, 
A. J. Kynett, 
A. A. Stevens, 
J. C. Price, 
J. W. Lee, 
W. C. Stiles, 
J. R. Miller, 
John H. Stiness, 



Jos. P. Egan, 
Mary A. Woodbridge, 
A. G. Wolfenbarger, 
A. B. Nettleton, 
Daniel Agnew, 
Lyman Abbott, 
John A. Brooks, 
Joshua L. Baily, 
W. K. Brown, 
M. McLellan Brown, 
John Bascom, 
Edward Braislin, 
J. B. Cranfili, 
S. II. Cranmer, 
Samurl F. Cary, 
T. R. Carskadon, 
James II. Darlington, 
E. L. Dohonev, 
Arthur Edwards, 
O. P. Gifford, 
A. J. Gordon, 
J. B. Graw, 
J. B. Gibbs, 
Walter B. Hill, 
E. R. Hutchins, 
J. B. Helwig, 
H. W. Hardy, 
W. T. Hornaday, 
Edward Everett Hale, 
A. J. Jutkins, 
Thomas L. James, 
Theo. D. Kanouse, 
H. B. Moulton, 
Francis Murphy, 
A. A. Miner, 
T. J. Morgan, 
R. H. McDonald, 
John O'Donnell, 
Robert C. Pitman, 
Eli F. Ritter, 
Geo. R. Scott, 
Green Clay Smith, 
H. A. Scomp, 
W. Stxonge. 



PROGRAM ME 



The National Temperance Congress 

TO BE HELD IN THE 

Broadway Tabernacle, New York, 

(Corner Broadway and Thirty-fourth St.,) 
For Two Days, beginning at 9.30 o'clock A.M., June 11. 



Wednesday Morning, June 11. 

9.30 — Temperance Songs by the Silver Lake Quartette. 
10.00 — Colonel Alexander S. Bacon will call the meeting to 
order. 
Organization — Prayer. 
10.30— Topic : Is State and National Prohibition Desirable 
and Feasible? 
Discussion opened by General Neal Dow and Robert 
Graham. 
11.30 — Topic : Alcohol a Poison — Never to be Used for 
Beverage Purposes. 

N. S. Davis, M.D., of Chicago. 
12.00— Topic : The Battle at Omaha. 

Professor A. R. Cornwall. 
12.30 — Adjournment. 

Wednesday Afternoon, June 11. 

1.45— Singing and Prayer. 

2.00 — Topic : The Line on Which all Enemies of the Saloon 
May Unitedly do Battle Whether They be Be- 
lievers in Restrictive Measures or in Radical 
Prohibition. 
Discussion opened by I. K. Funk, D.D., W. R. 
Huntington, D.D., General A. B. Nettleton, of Min- 
neapolis, A. J. Kynett, D.D., of Philadelphia. 

3.30 — The Systematic Prosecution of the Total Abstinence 
Work Essential to the Overthrow of the Liquor 
Power. 
Discussion opened by Albert Griffin, of Kansas. 

4.00 — Topic : How May the Churches Aid Most Effectively 
in the Destruction of the Liquor Traffic? 



5X11 PROGRAMME. 



Discussion opened by James M. Buckley, D.D., 
Joseph Cook. 
5.00 — Topic : The Coffee-House and other Substitutes for 
the Saloon. 
Discussion opened by Joshua L. Bailey, S. H. Hill- 
iard, L. A. Maynard. 
6.00— Adjournment. 

Wednesday Evening, June 11. 

8.00 — Mass Meeting : Singing and Prayer. 

General Wager Swayne presides. 
Topic : The Bearing on the Temperance Reform of 
the Unbroken Package Decision of the Supreme 
Court. 
Addresses by Judge C. C. Bonney of Chicago, Judge 
William H. Arnoux, of New York, Hon. Walter 
B. Hill of Georgia. 
The National Aspect of the Liquor Traffic. 

General Samuel F. Cary of Ohio. 
Topic : Is High License to be Regarded as a Remedy ? 
Addresses by A. A. Miner, D.D., Howard Crosby, D.D. 

Thursday Morning, June 12. 
9.45 — Singing and Prayer. 

10.00 — Should there be a Political Party whose Dominant 
Idea is the Prohibition of the Liquor Traffic? 
Discussion opened by H. K. Carroll, LL.D., ex-Presi- 
dent John Bascom, D.D., late of Wisconsin Uni- 
versity. 
11.00 — Topic : The Relation between Temperance Reform 
and Improved Dwellings. 
Discussion opened by R. Fulton Cutting. 
11.30 — The Canadian Experiment in Prohibition. 

"4on. George E. Foster, Minister of Finance, 
Canada. 
12.00 — The Temperance Reform in Great Britain. 

Robert Rae, Secretary of the National Tem- 
perance League of Great Britain. 
12.30 — Adjournment. 

Thursday Afternoon, June 12. 

1.45 — Singing and Prayer. 

2.00 — Topic : To what Causes is to be Attributed the Failure 
of the Prohibition Amendments in the Late Con- 
tests in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Rhode 
Island ? 



PROGRAMME. XX111 

Discussion opened by H. H. Faxon, of Massachu- 
setts, General Palmer, of Pennsylvania, Henry 
B. Metcalf, of Rhode Island. 
3.30 — Topic : The Attitude of the Labor Men toward the 
Liquor Traffic. 
Discussion opened by Samuel Gompers, President of 
the American Federation of Labor, T. B. Wake- 
man, of New York. 
4.30 — Topic : Law and Order Societies. 

Discussion opened by Mary A. Woodbridge. 
5.00 — Temperance Work Among the Young-. 

Discussion opened by Mary H. Hunt, of Boston, ex- 
President James McCosh, D.D., of Princeton, 
Rev. James H. Darlington. 
6.00 — Adjournment. 

Thursday Evening, June 12. 

8.00 — Mass Meeting : Singing and Prayer. 
General Neal Dow presides. 
A Concert of Song by the Silver Lake Quartette. 
Addresses on the following topics : 
The Nebraska Amendment. 
Mrs. Marv A. Hitchcock, President of the Ne- 
braska W. C. T. U. 
The Appeal to Philip Sober. 

Joseph Cook. 
The Liquor Traffic and the Negro. 

Bishop H. M. Turner, late of Atlanta, Ga. 
No Sectionalism in the Temperance Work. 
General Green Clay Smith, of Kentucky. 



RULES. 

1. Fifteen minutes to be allotted to each opening" address. 

2. The " Talks" following the opening of each discussion 
to be limited to five minutes. 

3. The chair is to " call time" promptly. 

4. The Congress shall be wholly for conference ; hence 
all resolutions are to be ruled out of order. 

C^ 3 * All persons participating in the discussions are ex- 
pected to write out carefully, for publication, their speeches 
or "talks," and send the same to the Secretary within ten 
days after the adjournment of the Conference. These ad- 
dresses will be published in book form, cloth bound, and 
sent, postage paid, to subscribers at $1,10. Orders should 
be given to the Secretary. 



PROCEEDINGS 

OF THE 



NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS, 



HELD IN THE 



BROADWAY TABERNACLE, NEW YORK, 
June 11th and 12th, 1890. 



WEDNESDAY MORNING. 

After Temperance soDgs by the Silver Lake Quar- 
tette, the Congress was called to order by Colonel Alex- 
ander S. Bacon, who nominated for President the Rev. 
Charles F. Deems, D.D., LL.D. 

Upon motion of Colonel Bacon, Mr. Joseph A. Bogar- 
dus was appointed Secretary of the Congress, and Messrs. 
A. R. Heath and Stephen M. Wright, Assistants. 

Upon taking the Chair, Dr. Deems said : 

The American custom, I think, is to expect some- 
thing of an inaugural from every elected president, no 
matter how he has managed to be elected. I follow the 
grand American precedent in a very ungrand way. I 
wish to detain you only a few minutes, ladies and gen- 
tlemen, to tell you something of the genesis of this 
Congress. 



2 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

A few gentlemen, months ago, were assembled in a 
room, not very large, in this city, to take an outlook 
upon the whole Temperance movement in America. It 
so happened that, while that assembly was not large, it 
was very representative. There was scarcely any phase 
of Temperance sentiment which did not have a repre- 
sentative man there. The result of that conference was 
so pleasant, we managed to become so sweet, in accord- 
ance with the hymn which has just been sung, that at 
the close it was thought best to have another meeting, 
and another. We had found that men could differ and 
yet agree, could have strong convictions and strong 
affections ; and so it was agreed that there should be a 
committee appointed, in the city of New York, to take 
any further steps in regard to this movement. That 
committee also was made very representative. I don't 
think you could find five or six men more utterly unlike 
than the five or six who were put upon that committee. 
In my absence they made me Chairman, and necessarily 
expected me to do a very great deal of work. I cannot 
tell you why they did that, unless it was on account of 
my sex, my age, and my previous condition of servitude. 
I suppose it was on account of my youthfulness, on ac- 
count of my always being ready to work for the Temper- 
ance cause whenever called upon in any way. At any 
rate, it was so, that I was put to the front in that fash- 
ion. And so they have come to nominate me as the 
President of this Congress. That they did in my absence. 
I could wish some gentleman not engaged with so large 
a parish as I have in this city could have this place. But 
as you have chosen to elect me, I want to say a few words. 

I have watched the progress of this movement with 
the utmost carefulness. I have been present at eveiy 
business meeting of the committee. I have looked into 
every man's eye carefully. I have sought to discover 



WEDNESDAY MORXIXG. 3 

•whether there was any " colored gentleman in the fence/' 
whether there was any " feline creature in the meal," 
whether there was any intent to carry out any partisan 
or personal motive. And now I stand before you to 
give you my word of honor as a gentleman that in all 
our most secret and confidential conversations I have be- 
come perfectly satisfied that the motives of all those 
gentlemen were entirely unselfish. (Applause.) Yes, 
you may clap that, because I think that is an important 
fact to clap. It was pretty hard for us all to be honest 
about the thing now. There were only six or seven of 
us, but every man was a man of strong convictions ; and 
as my little girl said, one day, to her nurse, looking up 
into her face (the dear little darling), " If you think it's 
easy to be good a whole day at a time, you never were 
more mistaken since you were born." Now, if yon 
think it was easy for us all to sit in these meetings, in 
striving to make arrangements that everything should 
be impartial and fairly represented in this conference, 
you are mistaken. It was not easy, but it was done. 
The committee have given way, each man giving way, 
and that is the reason we have had peace. And so we 
close our labors. 

Now, ladies and gentlemen, we have come together in 
just that spirit. We issued a call, saying, " We, the 
undersigned, representing almost" — we put that in out 
of modesty ; we believed it was u altogether," but we 
thought there might be some shade of anti-liquor views 
that we hadn't got ; they are very occult, you know — 
il representing almost every shade of anti-liquor views, 
believe that the time has come for representative Tem- 
perance people throughout the country to assemble to- 
gether in convention, to look into one another's face, to 
compare views frankly, to learn the whole ground of our 
agreement, and to enlarge that ground, if possible, by 



4 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE COXGRESS, 

candid and friendly discussion.' ' Now, I know what 
that means, for I wrote that sentence myself, though I 
didn't write the rest of the call. Now that is my spirit, 
the spirit of the man who has been made your President. 
If there is any man who comes into this convention and 
undertakes to speak or act who does not hate the saloon, 
he is an interloper. If there is a gentleman or a lady 
here to-day who does not hate the saloon, it is the de- 
cent thing to rise and leave now. The only one thing 
we hate now is the saloon. The only cry we have now 
is, ' ' Down with the saloon. ' ' We have all come together 
to see if we cannot burn up or drown or otherwise anni- 
hilate the saloon. We have come in from the whole 
camp and all the army everywhere, just to try to take 
that one fort, and nothing else. That is all we are here 
for. And so every speech ought to be resonant with that 
sentiment ; and as that old Roman senator used to con- 
clude every speech on every subject, " Carthago delenda 
est " so every speech here ought to close with, " Cau- 
pona delenda est" — " The grog-shop must be put down" 
— provided that is good Latin. If any man can tell me if 
there is any word better Latin for the grog-shop, the nasty 
little tavern, than u caupona" then I would like to know. 

A lady : The English is good enough. 

The President : Then, let us come back to the English, 
and say, " Down with the saloon !" 

Chorus : " Down with the saloon !" 

The President : Well now keep sweet. We haven't 
come together particularly to define our views. If any 
of you don't know where I stand to-day, after all the 
time I have spent in Temperance, you never will know 
at all. If any of you don't know where Neal Dow 
stands, or Robert Graham, or Howard Crosby, or Albert 
Griffin, where our friends from all over this country 
stand, what is the use of trying to tell you ? So we are 



WEDNESDAY MORNING. 5 

not going to waste time in telling what we believe. 
Don't we know what the Prohibitionists want, and what 
the High License people want ? What are we here for ? 
It is not to see what we can get from one another, but 
what we can give to each other. It is for the Prohibi- 
tionists to tell us, "I am willing to go so far to meet the 
emergency, provided we can put down the saloons." 
It is for the High License men to say how far they will 
go to put down the saloon. It is for the Anti-Saloon 
Republicans to say how far they will go to put down the 
saloon. It is for the Anti-Saloon Democrats, if any 
there be, to say how far they will go to put down the 
saloon. 

A voice : They are pretty scarce. 

The President : And, therefore, all the more precious. 
If there is one Anti-Saloon Democrat, let him rise, that 
we may cheer him. 

One rose, and was cheered. 

A voice : Mr. President, what does the saloon want ? 

The President: I don't care, brother, what the saloon 
wants. I want to kill it. When I am hunting tigers, I 
don't want to know what the beast wants. I want to 
kill it ; that's all. Now, ladies and gentlemen, we are 
going to work. We have come together in a peaceable 
way, to be as sweet as possible to one another. Let us 
avoid all offensiveness. Let us avoid all partisanship or 
personalities. You see, they rely upon this. They are 
watching. The grog-seller over there at the corner of 
Thirty-fourth Street is watching to find some Prohibi- 
tionist giving a dig at a High License man, and some 
High License man gouging some Prohibitionist. They 
long to have it so. They long to have us very bitter, 
and they want to see us fight. Is this an arena ? If it 
is, I don't accept the presidency. Is this a free fight ? 
Is this a mob? If it is, ladies and gentlemen, I decline 



6 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

the presidency. But if you have come together in the 
spirit of our holy faith, to see what we can all do to- 
gether, then I feel that it is a very great honor to be 
made President of the first of a series of congresses which 
will be held every year down to the coming of the king- 
dom, and down to the death of the saloon. For, you see, 
ladies and gentlemen, while we need conventions to 
make platforms, to pass resolutions, to bind men togeth- 
er, to be the bond of action, we also need congresses 
that shall talk lovingly together and lay plans for the 
convention. Just as in the Church they have a church 
congress. A church congress does not pass resolutions 
or make platforms, but a church congress does ventilate 
the views of the leading thinkers of that particular 
church, so that when the convention, or the synod, or 
the conference come together, they shall be able to leg- 
islate understanding what the sentiment of the church 
is. If I understand, that is this Congress. Am I right ? 
For if I am not, I don't want to undertake the presi- 
dency. Am I right ? Will you all stand by me in that ? 

Voices : Yes. 

The President : Very few of you said Yes. 

Mr. Faxon, of Quincy, Mass. : I believe, Mr. President, 
there are occasions and times when you want to fight. 

The President : Yes ; but I tell you when the time is not. 
The time is not when the generals have met in a tent to 
consider the set of the field and lay out the plans. That 
is not the time to fight. Fools fight then. Heroes fight 
when the campaign is laid out and when the charge is, 
41 Up, guards, and at them I" But we have not come 
here to fight. If anybody has come here to fig\it y he 
ought to leave. It isn't right. I tell you, in view of 
this call, we don't want to fight now. You needn't talk 
to mo about fighting. I am sufficiently pugnacious, any- 
way. Don't talk about fighting now. Let us have two 



WEDNESDAY MORNING. 7 

days of sweet reasonableness. They know we will fight 
at the right time. Let us show the world now that we are 
people of sweet reasonableness, and we shall accomplish 
a great deal of good. 

Now, one other thing before we proceed. The com- 
mittee drew up certain rules, and before I accept the 
presidency I want to read them to you. (The President 
read the rules.) 

Well, ladies and gentlemen, if you are willing that 1 
should be your President, following those rules strictly, 
I accept the honor with great thankfulness. I have been 
a Temperance worker ever since I was ten years old, and 
that makes me now sixty years in the fight. I have be- 
longed to every organization that has risen. I join them 
all. I go for everything that will put down the saloon. 
And so 1 accept this honor at your hands, and will strive 
to discharge this duty, hoping that you will help me. 
You will help me very much if, when you rise, if I do 
not see you at the moment, you will be good enough just 
to call your name. Say, " Mr. A. B., from C," and 
then blaze ahead. It will save time. 

Prayer was offered by Rev. Dr. Parkhurst, editor of 
Ziorts Herald, Boston. 

The first subject on the programme was, 

Is State and National Prohibition Desirable and 

Feasible ? 

The President : The first speaker will be an object les- 
son — a man over eighty-six years of age, coming from 
far off-New England, away down in the State of Maine ; 
a man whom we have all known from our childhood. It 
is a good thing that the first utterance in the regular 
discussions of this Congress should be by the Hon. Neal 
Dow, whom I have the pleasure of presenting to you. 
(Great applause.) 



8 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

The President : That, sir, is not a circumstance to what 
we will do when you are a hundred years old. 

General Dow's address was as follows : 

I am expected to give my opinion upon this question 
within the limit of fifteen minutes. I know of no mode 
of condensation by which I can do that ; but in a few 
minutes I can show that Prohibition is both desirable and 
feasible, by relating what the experience of Maine has 
been in obtaining Prohibition and maintaining it for 
nearly forty years. 

There was probably no State in the Union the people 
of which were less likely than those of Maine to adopt 
the policy of Prohibition, at the time when the agitation 
in that direction was commenced. There were none 
anywhere among whom the use of intoxicating drinks 
was more general, where the drink habit seemed to be 
more fixed and ineradicable. They were consuming in 
strong drink the entire value of all the property of the 
State in every peiiod of twenty years, as the people of 
the United States are now doing in every period of 
thirty-five years. There were but two great and leading 
industries in the State at that time — the lumber trade 
and the fisheries, both on a large scale. The products 
of these were mostly sent to the West Indies, the returns 
for them being largely in rum, and in molasses to be 
converted into New England Rum, at the numerous dis- 
tilleries then existing in the State. All this immense 
quantity of rum was for home consumption, besides a 
quantity of potato- whiskey and cider-brandy, to the pro- 
duction of which some of the distilleries were devoted. 
The State of Maine was never a dollar the richer through 
these great industries, because their products were largely 
consumed by the people in the shape of rum. 

The people of Maine were poor in those days ; the State 
was the poorest in tho Union ; evidences of unthrif t and 



WEDNESDAY MORNING. 9 

dilapidation were everywhere seen. All this was to be 
traced to the drink habits of the people, through which 
the wages of labor were wasted, and the people them- 
selves disinclined to steady industry, and speedily un- 
fitted for it. Every grocer's shop and country trader's 
shop was a rum shop ; and, with the rum taverns 
throughout the State, they afforded facilities for drink- 
ing and held out temptations to intemperance in every 
neighborhood. At every cross-road there were rum 
shops ; there was no hamlet in the State so remote or so 
insignificant that the Liquor Traffic did not find it and 
establish a grog-shop there. 

All this poverty and unthrift came from the Drink 
Traffic ; this was established by law, and the law was 
supposed to represent the public opinion of the time 
when it was enacted. The men who set themselves 
earnestly at work to change all this began upon public 
opinion as the first step in the endeavor to overthrow 
the policy of license to the grog-shops, and to substitute 
for it the policy of Prohibition and suppression. We 
saw that Prohibition was desirable, and were resolved to 
find out if it were feasible. Missionary work, continu- 
ous, methodical, and persistent was undertaken on a 
large scale. The missionaries were volunteers, working 
without pay, and furnishing themselves all the expenses of 
their innumerable pilgrimages through the State, in the 
cold and severe winters as well as in the milder seasons. 
Their work was to show that the drink habit was all bad, 
inevitably leading to poverty, pauperism, and crime, and 
that no change in all this was possible so long as the 
grog-shops should be permitted to hold out temptation 
to intemperance everywhere. 

In every little country church and town house, and in 
every roadside school-house, we met the farmers and 
workingmen, with their wives and children, and laid 



10 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

out before them the intimate and inevitable relation of the 
Liquor Traffic to the poverty, pauperism, suffering, and 
crime so common in the State. Our purpose was to fire 
the hearts of the people with a burning indignation 
against the grog-shops which infested every part of the 
State. This agitation was continued without intermis- 
sion in every part of Maine until public opinion was so 
far enlightened and aroused that, in 1851, the Maine 
Law passed the Legislature through all its stages, and 
was enacted in one and the same day by a majority of 86 
to 40 in the House and 18 to 10 in the Senate, and took 
effect by a special provision on its approval by the 
Governor. 

All intoxicating liquors in the State intended for sale 
were by this law liable to be seized, confiscated, and de- 
stroyed. The law came down upon the liquor-dealers 
suddenly, without notice or warning ; they were taken 
by surprise, with large stocks of liquors on hand as re- 
tailers and as wholesalers. The municipal authorities 
issued notice to these that a reasonable time would be 
conceded to them for the sending away their liquors to 
other States and countries, where their sale was permitted 
by law ; but liquors retained in the State would be con- 
sidered as intended for sale, and would be seized and 
dealt with according to law. 

The immediate result of this was that the draymen of 
the cities and large towns were very busy for some days 
in transporting these contraband liquors to the railway 
stations and steamboat landings on their way to Boston 
and New York. These drays sometimes formed long 
processions, engaged in this wonderful work of reclaim- 
ing Maine from this fruitful source of misery, wretched- 
ness, and ruin. Suddenly the open sale of liquor ceased 
throughout the State. Every man of decent character 
engaged in the traffic abandoned it ; it was continued on 



WEDKESDAY MORXING. 11 

the sly, in a very secret way and on a small scale only, 
by the lowest part of our population, mostly foreigners. 
The larger part of these were speedily brought to justice 
and driven out of the trade. The law was well and 
promptly enforced in the cities and large towns, as well 
as in the rural districts and villages. 

The immediate result of this faithful administration of 
the law was that within six months the jails in the 
counties of Penobscot, Kennebec, Franklin, Oxford, and 
York were empty. Cumberland County was older and 
more populous than any other in the State. Its jail was 
habitually overcrowded, and was so at the time of the 
enactment of the law ; but within four months there were 
but five prisoners in it, three of whom were liquor -sellers 
sentenced there for violation of the law. The House of 
Correction for Cumberland County was generally crowded 
with prisoners ; within four months it was empty. The 
Workhouse for Portland was a very large establishment, 
and was overcrowded ; within four months its inmates 
were so much reduced in number that it could accom- 
modate a city four times larger than Portland without 
grog-shops. The same thing was true of the workhouses 
throughout the State. House to house begging for 
" cold victuals" was universal before the law, but soon 
after its enactment this unfailing sign of poverty and 
desperate want ceased entirely, and has never since been 
seen in Maine. 

The effect of the law has been that, in more than 
three fourths of our territory, containing more than 
three fourths of our population, the Liquor Traffic is prac- 
tically unknown, so that an entire generation has grown 
up there never having seen a grog-shop nor the results 
of such an institution. There were many distilleries in 
Maine — large ones — seven of which, and two breweries, 
were in Portland ; but now there is no brewery or distil- 



12 NATIONAL TEMPEEAKCE CONGRESS. 

lery in the State, nor has there been one for many years. 
At the same time large quantities of West India rum 
were imported ; this was brought to us by the cargo, 
many large cargoes every year. Now not a puncheon of 
rum is imported, and there has not been one for many 
years. The liquors introduced into the State are in 
small packages, generally smuggled in, concealed in flour 
barrels or sugar barrels or dry-goods boxes. 

The volume of the Liquor Traffic now in Maine is not 
one twentieth as large as it was in the old rum time, or 
as it would be under any form of License. The annual 
saving to our people, direct and indirect, from Prohibi- 
tion is more than twenty-four million dollars, which, 
under any form of License, would be spent, lost, and 
wasted in drink. The result of this great saving is that 
Maine is now one of the most prosperous States in the 
Union, having been the poorest in ante-Prohibition days. 
In 1884, after an experience of more, than thirty-three 
years of the results of Prohibition, our people put it into 
the Constitution by a majority of 47,000, the affirmative 
vote being three times larger than the negative. 

The wretched condition in which Maine was before 
the advent of Prohibition, contrasted with its results 
upon the moral and material interests of the people, show 
conclusively, beyond all possibility of denial or doubt, 
that such a policy was desirable ; and the readiness and 
enthusiasm with which it was adopted by the Legislature 
and subsequently approved and affirmed by the people 
clearly demonstrates that Prohibition is feasible. AY hat 
I have said of the results of Prohibition in Maine will 
apply, with little if any modification, to Kansas and 
Iowa ; in less degree, perhaps, to Vermont and New 
Hampshire, the prohibitory statutes in the latter States 
being defective in important points, while those of the 
three former States are not yet well suited to making 



WEDNESDAY MORNIXG. 13 

speedy and thorough work of the complete suppression 
of the Liquor Traffic. 

In the New York Independent of June 5th of this year 
Albert W. Paine says, his figures being takep from offi- 
cial sources, " The revenue from the liquor trade in the 
whqle United States is $1.95 per inhabitant : in New 
York, $2.30 ; in Pennsylvania, $1.49 ; in New Jersey, 
$2.95 ; in Massachusetts, $1.02 ; in Connecticut and 
Rhode Island, 65 cents ; in New Hampshire, 85 cents ; 
in Maine, three and two thirds cents per inhabitant, which 
is about the same as Vermont." 

The most formidable obstacle now in the way of the 
speedy adoption of Prohibition throughout the country 
is the High License craze, which was invented and urged 
by politicians as the only possible defence of the saloons 
against the rapidly rising indignation of the people. 
The leading political papers of the country urged upon 
the saloonists the acceptance of this policy as their only 
hope of safety from the Prohibitionists. At the same 
time it was urged upon the country at large as a good 
thing for Temperance, because it would regulate and re- 
strict the Liquor Traffic, while Prohibition was practi- 
cally Free Rum — because that policy was a failure every- 
where. Such was from the first and is now the plat- 
form of the High License Party. 

Now, there is not a word of truth in that. May I 
speak plainly here, just what I think ? 

The President : Oh, yes ; frankly but kindly. 
Mr. Dow : Very well. That's a lie. There's not a 
word of truth in it. Now there is no public man in this 
country better informed in relation to public affairs than 
the late Thurlow Weed, a man of very high character. 
Not very long before his death, in the New York Tribune 
he had an article entitled " Wine a Remedy for Intem- 
perance," and in it he said, " Prohibition having failed 



14 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

everywhere, it is very important now that thoughtful 
men should turn their attention to some way to remedy 
the tremendous evils coming from intemperance. " And 
he said, u Even Neal Dow acknowledges that Prohibi- 
tion is a failure in Maine and everywhere." So, taking 
him up in the columns of the New York Tribune, I said, 
" Mr. Thurlow Weed, where did you get it, that Neal 
Dow said anything like that ?" Well, he said he got it 
from the papers. I said, " Very well, Mr. Thurlow 
Weed ; you have had all your life such connections with 
the papers that you ought to understand that you should 
believe very little that is said there." 

Now I never said that — u Prohibition having failed 
everywhere." You will find that in the most reputable 
papers in the country, even in the religious papers — 
"Prohibition has failed everywhere," and that it is 
practically " Free Rum." 

I wish to speak of this matter freely and frankly, be- 
cause it is of the utmost importance to the progress of 
Prohibition that all honest and sincere friends of Tem- 
perance should understand it, there being many such 
now in the High License Party. 

I say, then, with no hesitation or reserve, that there is 
not a true word in that platform, except so far as the 
interests of the saloonists are concerned. 

It is certainly true that High License is their chief if 
not their only defence against Prohibition. It is not true 
that License of whatever name ever did or ever can reg- 
ulate and restrict the Liquor Traffic. Under that policy 
the volume of the Liquor Traffic and the evils coming 
from it have never been diminished, and never can be 
reduced. Under that policy the demand for liquor, 
whatever it may have been, has always been fully sup- 
plied, and always must be so. High License or License 
of any name is practically Free Rum, and always has 



WEDNESDAY MOBBING. 15 

been so, because under that policy everybody who wants 
liquor and has the money to pay for it has always been 
and always will be supplied. There is no intelligent 
man who dare endanger his reputation for common hon- 
esty by denying this to be entirely true without any quali- 
fication. High License is, in fact, Free Rum. 

It will be seen, then, that this part of the High Li- 
cense platform is founded upon a statement not one word 
of which is true. It is a cheat and a fraud. I do not say 
that all the High Licensists know this ; I prefer to be- 
lieve that they know very little of the matter. There 
are many of them who are led to believe that License 
" regulates and restricts the saloons, and diminishes the 
volume of the Liquor Traffic." There are no statistics 
which justify that opinion, while authorities abound 
w r hich show conclusively that it has no foundation in 
truth. England is a High License country and has been 
so for many years, and in no other country is there more 
if so much abounding and dreadful intemperance. In 
no other country are the people more occupied by the 
endeavor to devise some expedient to diminish the 
fearful evil. The present Parliament has now before it 
some tenor twelve distinct projects relating to this ques- 
tion, but the Government is at this moment engaged in 
a fearful struggle with a powerful minority in the en- 
deavor to fasten the Liquor Traffic upon the nation 
through all time by urging a measure creating a vested 
interest in the grog-shops, and giving immense indemni- 
ties to every one of them that may be closed. 

There are but two points in the High License platform : 
" Prohibition is everywhere a failure ; and 
# " High License regulates and restricts the Liquor 
Traffic, therefore it is the only remedy for intem- 
perance." 

There is not one word of that true ; it is false from 



16 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

the first word to the last. The party opposes Prohibi- 
tion vehemently and (professedly) only on that ground. 
I say, then, without hesitation, that the platform of the 
High License Party, in its entirety, is a falsehood, a 
cheat, and a fraud. 

Prohibition is now in active operation in many hun- 
dreds of localities in this country and in the old world, 
and has never been a failure anywhere ; it has been a 
success everywhere — that is, it has diminished the vol- 
ume of the Liquor Traffic everywhere, in many places 
sweeping it entirely away ; in some places greatly re- 
ducing it ; in other places reducing it to a larger or 
smaller extent. Those who pose before the country as 
Temperance men ought to know what the facts really 
are in relation to the results of Prohibition ; this is easily 
ascertained by any one who honestly desires to find out 
what the truth is. Failing to inform themselves on this 
point, they may justly be stigmatized as spreading an un- 
truth wilfully when they declare Prohibition to be a fail- 
ure everywhere. 

These men quote Portland and Bangor, in Maine, as 
cases in point to prove their assertion that Prohibition 
is a failure. Liquors are sold in both those cities in 
violation of law on a very small scale, and generally 
on the sly ; but it is within the truth to say that in Port- 
land the quantity sold is not one hundredth part so 
much and in Bangor not one fiftieth part so much as it 
was in the old rum time, or as it would be now under 
any form of License. These men wilfully and perversely 
ignore the vast benefits coming from Prohibition, and 
sneeringly point to isolated cases of violation and eva- 
sion of the law. 

These men complain of us because we treat them with 
scant courtesy, hardly recognizing them, if at all, as 
honest friends of Temperance, in the interests of which 



WEDNESDAY 3I0RNING. 17 

they profess to be working. We are justified in judging 
them by their surroundings, their associations, their 
affiliations ; and we find a large part of these among the 
worst and lowest classes of the people, all harmoniously 
working together, heartily co-operating with each other 
for the accomplishment of the same object — the defeat of 
Prohibition and establishment of the Liquor Traffic by 
law, and handing it down to future generations. 

These men seem to think the Temperance movement a 
mere dress parade, where gentlemen can display their 
feathers and epaulettes. They seem to have no con- 
sciousness that it is war — real war — war d Voutrance, 
with no quarter ; a war of extermination to the grog- 
shop, on the one hand, or ruin to the country on the 
other. A "war between heaven and hell," as an emi- 
nent member of the British Parliament called it, in which 
there is and can be no neutrality ; the Lord's side and 
the devil's side ; there is no other side, and no between 
those sides. On which side is the High License Party 
found ? I make no reply to this, but the answer is ob- 
vious and infallible. 

Look carefully at the formidable front of this great 
High License Party. With field-glasses examine its long 
line drawn up in battle array. What do we see ? A 
great many of the foremost men of the country, both 
clerical and lay, famous in Church and State ; but these 
are not numerous enough to withstand the onward march 
of Prohibition. Look again ; what do we see ? All the 
brewers, distillers, and rumsellers of the country are in 
that line ; the masters of splendid drink shops and the 
keepers of the lowest and vilest rum dens — they are all 
there ; all of them so graphically described by John 
Wesley when he said : 

" Oh, ye dealers in strong drink, ye are poisoners-gen- 
eral ; ye drive His Majesty's subjects to hell like sheep ; 



18 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

neither does your eye pity nor spare ; your gain is the 
blood of the people. Blood is upon the foundation of 
your houses, upon the walls of them, upon the furni- 
ture of them, upon the roof of them. Oh, ye men of 
blood, do ye think to hand down your gorgeous palaces 
and your great estates to your children's children ? 
Nay, verily, the heavy hand of the Lord shall be upon 
you ; your name shall be blotted out ; you shall have 
no place." 

All the blasphemers and Sabbath-breakers are in that 
line ; all the rogues, roughs, and rascals ; the thieves, 
gamblers, robbers, burglars, wife-beaters, incendiaries, 
men of violence and blood — all are there working to- 
gether earnestly, harmoniously, fraternally for one com- 
mon end — viz., the overthrow of Prohibition and the 
establishment by law of the men who " drive the people 
to hell like sheep." That is the answer, the infallible 
answer to the question, " On which side is the High 
License Party found !" This is not my answer, but that 
of the facts in the case. 

The Voice, the organ of the National Prohibition Party, 
has an uncomfortable way sometimes of driving people 
into a corner or putting them into a hole, and smilingly 
leaving them there. In the issue of May 22d it gives an 
amusing account of an interview with many High License 
men on the matter of the Louisiana Lottery, which is 
now offering $1,000,000 a year to any State that will give 
it a license. These High License gentlemen, every one 
of them, were vehemently opposed to licensing the lottery, 
but at the same time are earnest friends of License to 
the Liquor Traffic. Why object to the lottery ? Because 
it is inconsistent with the public good ; it demoralizes 
the people. Not for $40,000,000 a year would the Rev. 
Dr. Parkhurst grant a license to the Louisiana Lottery, 
but the grog-shops stand on a very different footing 1 



WEDNESDAY MORNING. 19 

Yes, that is true, for they are a thousand times more mis- 
chievous every way to nation and State, and a thousand 
times more demoralizing to the people than the lottery 
could possibly be. Will the leaders of the High License 
party, clerical or lay, please tell us why they object to 
licensing a lottery, but earnestly favor license to the 
grog-shop ? There are some things that we don't under- 
stand, we Prohibitionists, and that is one of them. 

Now, there is not one of these intelligent men who 
does not know that a grog-shop cannot be established 
without destroying people, body and soul, making hun- 
dreds of thousands of homes miserable and wretched, 
which, but for the grog-shops, would be peaceful, pros- 
perous, and happy. They know all that, and yet how 
can intelligent men, calling themselves Christian men, 
give warrant of law to that devilish trade ? I call it 
devilish, as I am justified in doing, for the reason that 
its tendency is to drive out from the people everything 
that is good, and to substitute for it everything that is 
bad. 

Now, in working up this matter of the Maine Law in 
Maine, fifty years ago, we had a great advantage in the 
help of all the clergymen, and especially the Methodist 
clergymen. I suppose it is not news to you that Meth- 
odist ministers are not afraid of anybody when they are 
going for the right. They went up and down through 
the State of Maine denouncing License. "We struck at 
the License first, down in Maine. We would have none 
of that. We would give no legal standing to that in- 
fernal trade, the traffic in intoxicating liquors as a drink. 
And those Methodist ministers came out against the 
Liquor Traffic as u the gigantic crime of crimes," and 
denounced License as a compromise with sin and a league 
with the devil. 

And now the most extraordinary thing about this 



20 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

whole matter is this : that high-minded, intelligent men 
— as much so as we can claim to be ; good men — as good 
as we can claim to be — go with all their heart to Albany 
to labor with those boodle men up there in order to get 
them to establish grog-shops here. Hand in hand with 
men who are "poisoners-general," " driving the people 
to hell like sheep," earnestly pleading with the Legis- 
lature to establish the saloons by law. And they have 
what they call a reason for it. And what is it ? That 
Prohibition has failed everywhere. Well, excuse me for 
repeating. That's a lie, whoever said it. I don't mean 
to say that they know it to be a lie, but it is a lie for all 
that. That's the only foundation that they have. They 
pretend that they don't like the grog-shops. That's what 
they say. And yet they go for them with all their might, 
and they are very bitter against us who won't go with them 
to give legal standing in the community to that trade 
which inflicts more mischief and misery upon the people 
than all other sources of misery combined. Now our 
friends (if they call themselves our friends) who are in 
favor of High License, who are advocating High License, 
let me tell you this : it is you, and only you, who stand 
between Prohibition and the grog-shops. Whether you 
think and mean it or not, that is the fact. It is you who 
stand between Prohibition and the grog-shops. But for 
you Prohibition would come down upon the grog-shops 
like an extinguisher upon a candle. 

General Dow's time having expired, there were calls of 
"Goon." 

The President : No, no extension of time. The mo- 
ment you break the rule, gentlemen, you must have an- 
other President. 

The President continued : 

There is a gentleman to whom both England and 
America are indebted for earnest, wise, persevering work 



WEDNESDAY MORNING. 21 

in the Temperance cause. He has done so much to or- 
ganize not only men, but boys, of which I hope he will 
tell you, that I have very great pleasure in presenting to 
you a gentleman who represents the Church movement in 
this matter — our friend, Robert Graham, Esq., who will 
address you. 

Mr. Graham spoke as follows : 

I am one of the men whom General Neal Dow charac- 
terized as men who recognize a lie. I am one of the men 
to whom he referred when a gentleman on that platform 
called out Amen. I beg to say — " Sweetness and 
strength," the President reminds me, and therefore I 
will change my line. I would have been tempted to say 
something more than that. 

Allow me to say first, then, that I came to this meet- 
ing with one intention, and only one ; I came to this 
meeting with one desire, and only one ; I came to this 
meeting with the determined intention to express my own 
honest opinions as far as I knew them ; I came here de- 
termined that no single man or any body of men should 
frighten me down in the expression of those opinions ; 
I came here determined that I would cast no aspersions ; 
I came here determined that I would never use the word 
"lie," and determined that I would never characterize 
any man as a liar provided he was an honest man, and 
one guided by the light of his own conscience. Now, I 
take this position, and I will state it frankly at the very 
opening of my address. 

Is National and State Prohibition desirable and feasi- 
ble ? I answer the question frankly, and I answer it 
fully. General Neal Dow left out two words of that 
sentence. He left out " National" and " State." I 
put in the two words u National" and u State," and I 
say frankly and firmly, and I give reasons for the opinion 
that I offer, that National and State Prohibition is neither 



22 NATIONAL TEMPEBAKCE COKGRESS. 

desirable nor feasible. The reason is as follows ; I know 
that I am speaking to an audience that is to an extent 
antagonistic, but I have been accustomed to meet ene- 
mies, and I never feared enemies, and I am not going to 
fear them now. 

The President : There are no enemies here ; all friends. 

Mr. Graham ; Then, friends, I ask you to listen. 
(Applause.) I hope you will be able to see, before I am 
through what I have got to state, that my speech is not 
sullied with aspersions, that it is a fair attempt at argu- 
ment. 

Now, what is National and State Prohibition ? It is 
well, at the very commencement, that we should under- 
stand just what is the meaning of the words that flow 
trippingly from our tongues. What is National and 
State Prohibition ? It means this : That there shall be 
an entire prohibition of the manufacture or sale, and 
therefore of the use, of all liquors, distilled or fermented. 
It puts in precisely the same category whiskey and beer. 
It puts in precisely the same category brandy and wine. 
I hold, then, that that is a law that is very deep and 
searching and extreme. Even General Neal Dow will 
allow that a law applied not only to every individual 
State of these United States, but also to the whole coun- 
try as well, by which all manufacture or sale and all 
use of fermented and distilled liquors is prohibited 
under pains and penalties is an exceedingly extreme law. 
I am not necessarily averse to the passage of an extreme 
law, but I hold that a man who propagates an extreme 
law like that, needs to consider two things. He needs, 
first, to consider that the basis of such a law must be of 
an almost impregnable character. He has got to believe, 
practically, that that law, where it has been applied, has 
been in all essential particulars an effective law, and 
has been and can be enforced. 



WEDNESDAY MORNING. 23 

Now, first, what is the basis on which Prohibition 
stands ? I hold, sir, that that basis is an unscriptural 
basis. I read my Bible, I hope, with some degree of care 
and attention. I never read, in any part of Holy Writ, 
a command which says, " Thou shalt not drink I" I 
read a large number of injunctions which say, u Thou 
shalt not be drunken." I ask General Neal Dow and 
those (the great majority of this meeting) who believe 
with him, by what authority you add an eleventh com^ 
mandment to the decalogue ? 

Let me come to the next point. I read there, in the 
life of your Lord and Master, and mine, that He used 
that which you denounce in such unsparing terms. I 
pass on to the greatest of his disciples, John the Baptist. 
He was a total abstainer from, as our Lord was a user 
of wine. I draw my conclusions from these two prac- 
tical cases, to the following effect : that Total Absti- 
nence, or a temperate use of wine, is a matter that be- 
longs to the man's own individual conscience, and should 
be acted upon by his own volition. 

Let me give a word of explanation here. General Neal 
Dow, when he was dealing with this question of Pro- 
hibition in Maine, which I will touch upon in a few 
moments, spoke severely of the High License men. I 
don't remember exactly the words that he used, but 
it was to the effect that they squirmed under the success 
of Prohibition in Maine. Let me say to you here, only by 
way of interjection, that I have never touched intoxicating 
liquors since I was twenty-one. I have been a Total Ab- 
stainer and a worker for Temperance reform during the 
whole of these forty-one years of my life ; and at the 
same time I am a High License man because I believe in 
its effectiveness. Now, we have to deal with the case 
upon a practical basis. Is it an effective law, or is it 
not ? I will leave over that little offensive word of three 



24 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGKESS. 

letters ; but I will tell you that I am one of the twelve 
who did visit Maine, and can speak of what I saw with 
my own eyes ; and I make this statement in General 
Dow's presence, that when I was in the city of Portland, 
Me. (and remember that that is a little city of per- 
haps 30,000 population — it will go inside of one of the 
wards of the great city of New York), I was at a hotel 
where I saw liquor on the table of one of the guests ; 
and furthermore, within one week, when I was at the 
city of Portland, there were thirty-three men and women 
brought up there and fined or imprisoned, or both, for 
drunkenness — and that in a place where it is not sup- 
posed to be possible to obtain liquor. 

Go now to Bangor. When I mentioned the fact that 
liquor was openly sold in the city of Bangor, I was 
scouted at and frowned down, and told that a man who 
wanted to find rum would always find it. But the fact 
was true, and has been proved true within two months 
past. And when, after long sleep, the men of Bangor 
woke up and wanted the law to put its nippers upon the 
men who had been selling rum for all these years, it was 
astonishing what a procession of trucks was carting out 
this liquor, which had all the time been domiciled in the 
city of Bangor, when the Prohibitionists were all the 
time speaking of the impossibility of obtaining liquor 
there ! 

I hold, then, that Prohibition has not been quite the 
success in Maine that General Dow say3 it has. 

I don't know how long Vermont and New Hampshire 
have been under a prohibitory law, but I know that in 
these two States that law is simply a dead letter. In the 
town of Dover, with something like 13,000 souls, under 
a stern prohibitory law, with a nuisance clause attached, 
there were to be found saloons openly selling liquor. 

Now come on to Providence, R. I. There also I 



WEDNESDAY MORNING. 25 

speak of what I observed. I went to Providence dur- 
ing the time that the prohibitory law was operative 
there, and found there a larger number of places selling 
liquor under a prohibitory law than had existed under a 
license law. 

Pass on further still. Take the great State of Iowa. 
Is there any single man on this platform or in the hall 
(here a gentleman in the audience rose and stated that he 
came from Iowa) — is there any single man or woman in 
this hall, the gentleman from Iowa included, who will 
venture to say that to-day, in the city of Burlington, in 
the city of Davenport, in the city of Council Bluffs, the 
liquor saloons are not as open and as openly selling as 
ever they did at any time when they acted under a High 
License or any other law ? 

I hold that Prohibition may be and is an effective 
thing in places where the population is sparse and 
scattered. My objection to Prohibition, in its Na- 
tional and State aspect, is that, applied to these large 
areas, you have to consider its feasibility in a city 
with 1,800,000 souls, where the problem is more 
vast than anything General Neal Dow has been called 
upon to cope with. You have not touched New 
York, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Chicago, St. Louis. You 
have not touched New Orleans. All the great cities of 
the United States are a sealed book, as far as the Prohi- 
bition Party and as far as the Prohibition law is con- 
cerned. Hence I believe this, that the difficulties of 
any repressive, restrictive, or prohibitory law increase in 
the inverse ratio of the population in that particular city. 
So I hold that while Prohibition has been a success in 
the smaller districts and in areas sparsely populated, yet 
as soon as it comes to be applied to the great cities, of 
which the city of New York is an example, it will be a 
gigantic and enormous failure. And because I never 



26 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

propose to put my hand to any law that I know before- 
hand will be a paper law and not an effective law, for 
that reason, and for that reason only, am I a determined 
opponent of that Prohibition law. 

Now there is another point I want to touch upon. I 
have been fighting for a restrictive law in this State for 
a great many years. The men who have always and uni- 
formly prevented the passage of any such law have been 
the Prohibition Party, especially the third party of the 
Prohibition Party. I will tell you why 1 aimed at the 
passage of that law. In looking at the conditions of this 
great State of New York, I want to offer a word of ad- 
vice, and this was prompted by the words that fell from 
the President in his opening address. He said, u We 
have here Prohibitionists, High License men, Anti-Saloon 
Eepublicans and Anti-Saloon Democrats — if there are 
such ;" but he never said a single word of the greatest 
factor of all in this great work of temperance reform — 
not the men who are going for law, but the men who are 
working for Gospel — the men who are working in God's 
name, holding out their hands and trying to take hold 
of that drunken man that you don't touch even with a 
pair of tongs. The one thing that I want to impress 
upon these gentlemen, here and now, is this : I think 
the time has come when we should go back to the older 
lines upon which they worked before the craze for Pro- 
hibition stirred up the enthusiasm of all the people, and 
put before them that grand question, " Am I my broth- 
er's keeper ?" and lead them to answer, " Yes." A few 
days ago I received a letter from a lawyer, who was evi- 
dently a keen, smart man. He said, u Do you know if 
there is a single Temperance society in the whole city of 
New York that will take hold of the family of a man or 
woman that has been brought to poverty through drink ? 
I have been inquiring through this whole city, and can't 



WEDNESDAY MOUSING. 27 

find any such organization, What can you do ?" I an- 
swered this, " If there was an organization in the city 
of New York whose duty and business it was to take 
hold of all the families that had been brought to poverty 
through drink, they would have on hand a larger con- 
tract than any voluntarily supported organization could 
carry out. But if you will let me know the name, the 
place, and the circumstances of the man who has come 
down to poverty, I think I know of one man and one 
society who will take hold of that man, as a man, who 
will administer the pledge to him in a solemn, serious 
way, and who will keep hold of that man's hand until 
he is able to stand on his own feet." Brethren, I be- 
lieve that, while we may be antagonistic on the question 
of a restrictive law and a prohibitory law, there is one 
broad platform on which we can all stand, and that is, 
that we do not any longer repeat the lines, 

" Rattle his bones over the stones, 
He's only a drunkard that nobody owns. 1 ' 

We want to go back to the rescue work for the drunk- 
ard — work that characterized, in a beneficent way, all 
the early workers of this faith. 

Judge Moulton, of Washington City, spoke as follows : 
The discussion turns upon this proposition : Is State 
and National Prohibition desirable and feasible ? Two 
distinct propositions. First, is it desirable ? I answer 
in the affirmative, Yes. Prohibition is desirable. It is 
desirable because it prohibits the saloon and the liquor 
power from debauching the fathers of the Republic. It 
is desirable because it prevents the saloon from making 
the father and the head of the family a drunkard. It is 
desirable because it prohibits the power of the saloon 
from making the boy, the moment he has left home, a 
drunkard. It is desirable because Prohibition prevents 
the saloon from striking down the Christian Sabbath in 



28 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

America. Prohibition is desirable because it prevents 
the waste of the toil and the industry and the money of 
the laboring men of the Republic ; because it prohibits 
the saloon from making about seven-tenths of the crim- 
inals of the Republic. It is desirable because it pre- 
vents the saloon from making three-fourths of all the 
paupers of the Republic. In other words, I might run 
on in this category, and say it is desirable because it pre- 
vents the saloon from debauching everything that is 
good and pure and noble in American citizenship. I 
don't want to use all my five minutes. I don't want to 
be called down. I will take up the second proposition : 
Is it feasible ? Why, from my earliest childhood I have 
learned that neither man nor the Divine Being above can 
make any law that will absolutely prohibit anything. I 
suppose that when God was giving the laws away up on 
the top of Mount Sinai, as I have heard some of these 
good brothers say, there were lots of men saying, 
" What's the use of making a prohibitory law, saying 
that you sha'n't worship these gods ? You ain't pro- 
hibiting it." I expect, all over this Republic, there are 
men saying, u Why, the prohibitory law don't prohibit. 
Don't you see the drunkard there in the street ?" Yes, 
and if you will come down to Washington, the capital 
of the nation, I will show you a prohibitory law on our 
statute books saying that a man sha'n't steal, and I will 
take you to the Criminal Court and show you the records 
of the violation of this law during every month in our 
city. There is not a law on the statute books of this 
State that is not violated every week. Who is he that 
will dare to stand up here to-day and say, " Those laws 
don't prohibit crime ; therefore repeal them." Prohi- 
bition will prohibit everywhere. Beyond that, fellow- 
citizens, Prohibition does prohibit wherever it is thor- 
oughly tried. 



WEDNESDAY MORXING. 29 

Mr. Edwin C. Pierce, of Rhode Island, spoke as fol- 
lows : 

Is Prohibition desirable ? Yes. We cannot, without 
it, abolish the slavery of intemperance, we cannot solve 
the social problem, we cannot have a triumphant de- 
mocracy. 

Is it feasible ? Y"es. Yet when enacted and long re- 
maining on the statute book, it has not been as effective 
as its friends had hoped. I want to state here one of the 
great reasons why Prohibition has failed to suppress the 
Liquor Traffic, and if I came from Rhode Island only to 
say this one thing, I should value the opportunity. I 
am a law T yer, and I am somewhat familiar with the ad- 
ministration of the criminal law. A serious, a most hurt- 
ful mistake has been made in the enactment of prohibi- 
tory laws, in this, that the penalties have been wholly 
inadequate. The mistake has lasted for now more than 
a generation. I pray you to examine as to this, to recognize 
the fact, everywhere offer the explanation, and in future 
legislation repair the erroi\ Another thing is desirable 
to make Prohibition successful. Amend the jury system 
so as to permit a verdict in all criminal cases to be ren- 
dered by less than a unanimous finding. In all but two 
or three States constitutional amendment is requisite to 
modify the unanimity rule of the common law in jury 
trials. 

Is National Prohibition desirable ? Yes. Without it 
the Rum. Power cannot be crushed. That power must 
be extirpated, torn up by the roots. Do not, however, 
seek to amend the constitution by laying a mandate for 
prohibition upon Congress. It is a very difficult thing 
to amend the National Constitution. Let us be thankful 
that it is a National Constitution. Instead of amending 
the Constitution, apply it, construing it beneficially. Its 
powers are enumerated rather than defined. Under the 



30 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

Constitution as it is — under the power to regulate com- 
merce — the manufacture, the importation, and the traffic 
in intoxicants can be sufficiently, radically dealt with. 

Again, the power to tax involves the power to destroy. 
When the issues of State banks were taxed ten percentum, 
the purpose was to destroy such issues. The power to 
regulate commerce is, however, ample for the suppres- 
sion of the Liquor Traffic. 

Is it impossible to secure Prohibition in many States 
and in the nation at an early day ? I think not. Con- 
stitutional amendment in States is not, however, the easy 
nor the sure way to it. Statutory Prohibition is, in the 
nature of American politics, fully as permanent, as effec- 
tive, and easier to secure in the long run. In order to 
get State or National Prohibition, it must be made a lead- 
ing issue in American politics. I do not say an exclusive 
issue, for it cannot be, but a leading issue. 

Has the time come when this question can be made 
such an issue ? Yes. It is easy to do it now. The 
tariff is soon to be removed from serious controversy. 
It has been with us as an exigent subject of controversy 
for sixty years, save when put aside by the struggle for 
the Union. We are about to have a long rest. The re- 
vision of 1890 will stand. It will be judged, some years 
hence, by its fruits. Let the Temperance forces of 
America welcome the opportunity to gain the right of 
way for their great issue. I voted for Hayes, for Gar- 
field, for Blaine, and for Harrison. I would recall none 
of those votes. But new occasions make new duties, the 
serious problems of American society summon patriots 
to consider the duty of political readjustment. Prohi- 
bition must be nationalized. I think it will require po- 
litical reorganization. 

Mrs. Ada M. Bittenbender, of the Woman's Christian 
Temperance Union, spoke as follows : 



WEDNESDAY MORXIXG. 31 

Mr. Chairman : I believe State and National Pro- 
hibition to be desirable and feasible. As to National 
Prohibition, to be effective I believe it must come 
through an amendment to the Constitution of the United 
States. 

An Amendment for National Constitutional Prohibition 
has been pending in every Congress since the Forty- 
fourth — nearly fourteen years —without reaching a vote 
in either body. During this time petitions representing 
more than ten millions of American citizens have been 
presented in Congress asking for the proposal to the 
States of such an amendment. •; 

The amendment was favorably reported by the Senate 
Committee on Education and Labor in the Forty-ninth 
and Fiftieth Congresses, and a minority report in its 
favor was returned by the House Committee on the Ju- 
diciary in the Fiftieth Congress. Its original form was 
not generally supported by Temperance organizations 
because of the discrimination concerning fermented 
liquors. The present form has the approval of all or- 
ganizations of the country which advocate National Pro- 
hibition. It was first introduced in the Fiftieth Con- 
gress, and provides : 

" Section 1. The manufacture, importation, exporta- 
tion, transportation, and sale of all alcoholic liquors as 
a beverage shall be, and hereby is, forever prohibited in 
the United States and in every place subject to their 
jurisdiction. 

" Sec. 2. Congress shall enforce this article by all need- 
ful legislation." 

The question has been, how to secure the concurrence 
of two thirds of each House of Congress to its proposal, 
and its ratification by the legislatures of three fourths of 
the several States. This has been answered in the 
* ' National Prohibitory Amendment fGruide, ' - a non-parti* 



32 STATIOSTAL TEMPERANCE CONCUIESS, 

san manual issued last November by the Woman's Tem- 
perance Publishing Association. 

The Plan of Canvass contained in the manual has re- 
ceived the endorsement of the National Executive Com- 
mittee of the Prohibition Party, the National Woman's 
Christian Temperance Union, the General Officers and 
Superintendents of Legislation and Petitions of nearly all 
State and Territorial Woman's Christian Temperance 
Unions, and the General Officers of the Right Worthy 
Grand Lodge of the Independent Order of Good Tem- 
plars, the Supreme Council Royal Templars of Temper- 
ance, and other national Temperance societies, who will 
represent their respective organizations at the joint Con- 
gressional Hearing on the Amendment, June 14th, in fur- 
therance of this plan. The plan has received the en- 
dorsement also of Hon. Henry W. Blair, United States 
Senator from New Hampshire, the author of the Na- 
tional Prohibitory Amendment, and who has it in charge 
in the Senate, 

A resume of the canvass is given in the manual, which 
I will read ; 

Resume of the Canvass. 

" The object of the canvass is to obtain an Amendment 
to the National Constitution, forever prohibiting in the 
United States, and in every place subject to their juris- 
diction, the manufacture, importation, exportation, 
transportation, and sale of all alcoholic liquors as a bev- 
erage. 

u The plan of canvass is contained in the ' National 
Prohibitory Amendment Guide.' Its main feature is to 
register National Constitutional Prohibitionists and to 
proclaim their number from time to time, as the work 
progresses, to the law-makers and people in general. At 
present there is no way of determining their numerical 
strength. 

" It is hoped that the footings of this register, in the 
near future, will indicate that one half of the adult peo- 



WEDNESDAY MORNING. 33 

pie of the United States have enlisted in the war for the 
extermination of the traffic in alcoholic beverages, and 
desire that the Constitution shall express the National 
will on the subject. When this is so shown, it is be- 
lieved that the Amendment will be proposed and rati- 
fied. 

" The canvassing is to be carried on by three classes 
of National Prohibitory Amendment committees, com- 
posed of representatives of the various Prohibition or- 
ganizations of the United States, viz. : 

" 1. National Prohibitory Amendment Committees for 
local work. 

" 2. National Prohibitory Amendment Committees for 
Congressional work. 

" 3. National Prohibitory Amendment Committees for 
State legislative work. 

" The representatives on the two last-named commit- 
tees are to consist of the General Officers of the National 
or State Prohibition societies, the General Officers of the 
National or State Executive Committee of the Prohibi- 
tion Party, and the National or State W. C. T. U. Super- 
intendent of Legislation and Petitions. 

u The local canvassing i3 to be carried on in canvass- 
ing districts, each consisting of one school district, ex- 
cept in large cities, where the school district may be di- 
vided into several canvassing districts. 

" The Woman's Christian Temperance Union having 
made this Amendment a special line of work ; having 
county and district, as well as local and State organiza- 
tions through which to carry it on ; and having a suitable 
department — that of Legislation and Petitions — ready 
to do its bidding, the initiatory steps for the organiza- 
tion of these committees and the responsibility for exe- 
cuting a part of the system of official reporting are com- 
mitted to its care. 

" The canvass is to be carried on simultaneously 
throughout the entire country. 

u Committee work is classed under two general heads, 
viz.: 

" First. Before proposal of the Amendment. 
u Second. After proposal of the Amendment. 
" Under the first general head the work is subdivided 
into seven distinct branches, the first six to be carried on 



34 RATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

by local committees and the seventh by the National 
Committee, viz.: 

" 1. Registering National Constitutional Prohibition- 
ists. 

" 2. Congressional petition work. 

" 3. Public discussions. 

" 4. Press work. 

" 5. Distribution of literature. 

11 6. Reporting local work to Prohibition organizations. 

" 7. Congressional canvassing and reports. 

" Under the second general head the work is subdi- 
vided into two distinct branches, the first to be carried 
on by the local committees and the second by the State 
committee, the former local work as far as applicable 
being continued, viz. : 

u 1. State legislative petition work. 

" 2. State legislative canvassing. 

" The expenses of N. P. A. committees for local work 
are to be met by contributions to the committees from the 
Prohibition organizations represented on them, by con- 
tributions from other sources, and by the efforts of com- 
mittees put forth in various ways. In similar ways the 
expenses of the other committees are to be borne. Pro- 
hibition work already being done is not to be duplicated. 

" Under ' Public Discussions, ' the plan is not to en- 
gage speakers and arrange for meetings, as that work is 
being dene by the several Prohibition organizations 
represented on committees, but to request each speaker 
on Prohibition to dwell on the National phase, to ask 
clergymen for frequent reference, and to keep a record of 
sermons and addresses which advocate, and of those 
which oppose this phase. The meeting beginning the 
canvass is under the auspices of the committee of the 
canvassing district. 

" Under ' Press Work, ' facts of general interest grow- 
ing out of the canvass are to be gleaned and published 
from week to week, the part of meetings and sermons 
advocating National Prohibition to be specially reported. 
The plan includes also the securing inserted in the local 
press of pointed paragraphs and articles on National Pro- 
hibition. 

" National Prohibitory Amendment leaflets, covering 
the various reasons for and answering common objections 



WEDNESDAY MORNING, 35 

against this method of outlawing the poisonous drink 
traffic, are to be distributed freely. 

" The system of official reporting provides for monthly 
and semi-annual reports from N. P. A. committees for 
local work, and for annual reports from the N. P. A. 
committee for Congressional work. It also provides for 
reports of the progress of the canvass, after proposal of 
the Amendment, from N. P. A. committees for State 
legislative work. These reports are to be made to the 
several Prohibition organizations represented on the re- 
spective committees. The press is to be furnished with 
a resume of each report. 

11 In registering National Constitutional Prohibition- 
ists, all are to subscribe to a pledge declaring themselves 
in favor of the Amendment, and that they will petition 
for its proposal by Congress and ratification by their re- 
spective State Legislatures. At the time of this regis- 
tration the petitions to Congress are to be signed. 
Adults and minors over sixteen are to be enrolled. 
Names of voters and non-voters are to be kept separate. 
The one registration is to answer for the entire campaign 
— deaths, removals from the canvassing district, and 
withdrawal of names, being duly noted. No name is to 
appear on petitions to Congress not first appearing sub- 
scribed in a canvassing register, for retention by the 
committee." 

Copies of the Guide and directions for organizing 
National Prohibitory Amendment Committees for local 
work have been sent to the local Woman's Christian 
Temperance Unions of nearly all the States and Terri- 
tories — all from which the general officers wrote to the 
author endorsing the plan — and the others will be fur- 
nished with copies as soon as the desired endorsement 
is obtained. Organization of the National Prohibitory 
Amendment Committee for Congressional Work will take 
place June 13th, the day preceding the Congressional 
Hearing. National Prohibitory Amendment Committees 
for State Legislative Work will be organized immediately 
following proposal of the Amendment. 



<% 



6 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS, 



The call under which we have met here to-day invites 
a frank comparison of views for the overthrow of the 
Liquor Traffic. I have presented the plan agreed upon 
for securing its overthrow through amendment of the 
Federal Constitution. 

Mr. W. Jennings Demorest, of New York, read the 
following paper : 

At no time in the history of the world has heroic moral 
courage been so indispensable for the uplifting of hu- 
manity, and attended with so many and such formidable 
obstructions, as in the attitude of the Liquor Traffic to- 
day. And notwithstanding the obstacles of appetite, 
interest, and custom are stupendous, the logic of the times 
proclaims that Prohibition is coming right along. Near- 
ly all the recent decisions of the United States Supreme 
Court, together with numerous decisions from our lower 
courts, and all the tendency of religious, moral, and po- 
litical agitations in the community have some bearing on 
this great question, and also serve to illustrate the foun- 
dation principles that underlie the whole question of the 
right and duty of the State and nation to prohibit this 
murderous business of liquor selling. The Supreme 
Court's last decision in reference to the right of Inter- 
state commerce and its application to the traffic when in 
original packages is now constitutional law, and is made 
especially applicable to alcoholic liquors. This proves 
how desirable and essential it is that we should have 
some more definite method of dealing with poisonous 
alcoholic beverages, which have become such an alluring, 
fascinating curse to debauch and destroy our civiliza- 
tion. The question of Prohibition, therefore, has taken 
on a more national character, and must now be settled 
by national authority through national political ac- 
tion. 

Besides, the traffic is found so thoroughly intrenched 



WEDNESDAY MORNING. 37 

in national politics, and so effectively combined and bar- 
ricaded with national authority and toleration, that na- 
tional Prohibition has become an imperative necessity, 
and every new phase of the liquor question offers some 
additional encouragement for the confident expectation 
that we are to soon see the end of this vile business of 
liquor selling secured through national constitutional 
amendments by the votes of the nation. 

The progress of Prohibition thus far has been almost 
phenomenal, partly because of the magnitude of the evil 
and partly because it is found that it must become a na- 
tional question for national security. Prohibition is, 
therefore, on its high tidal wave of success, both in State 
and nation. The whole tendency of public opinion and 
the logic of events fully justifies this expectation, so that 
it has become only a question of time, and, judging 
from the rapid accumulation of these favoring circum- 
stances and the terrible aggravation of the evils attend- 
ing the traffic itself, it will not be long before this mon- 
ster of crime, misery, and degradation will be among the 
relics of history. To strangle a venomous serpent, 
especially when he wriggles, may cost some determined 
effort, but the more it wriggles the more determined we 
are to destroy its vitality, and all opposition to reforms 
have to go through this wriggling process. 

But as reforms of any kind cannot come from those 
who are benefited by the continued existence of the 
evil, so we cannot have any hope or encouragement from 
those who are in sympathy with the liquor-dealers, as 
they will only cajole and mislead the people by artful 
subterfuges to fortify and perpetuate the traffic. The 
Liquor Traffic, therefore, can only be overcome by a 
combination of those who are opposed to it and free from 
all compromises or complications with parties whose only 
object is to betray the cause of entire Prohibition. Nor 



38 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

can we have any permanent success without the most de- 
termined, effective and radical measures. 

We must have Prohibition pure and simple, with no 
qualifications or concessions of a compromising character, 
either social or political. The selfish criminal conspiracy 
of those who would justify and tolerate these liquor 
fiends by compromises must be met with positive and 
determined opposition, and that means work ; not sym- 
pathy only, but active, energetic effort in every way that 
will secure entire Prohibition. Prohibition must there- 
fore be aggressively radical, not relying on good inten- 
tions or concessions of any kind, but a zealous, effective 
co-operation of the people for its entire success, using 
the most effective means that we can employ, especially 
in co-operation with active and conscientious minds, who 
are to be inspired with high aspirations and devoted zeal 
in the cause, and for those who can be aroused to a pa- 
triotic devotion and earnest, determined effort to secure 
the entire destruction of this piratical business through 
political action. Parties which are influenced by either 
habit, interest, passion, or prejudice will not and can- 
not give this question an impartial hearing, or offer any 
effective opposition. 

The destruction of the Liquor Traffic is, of all other 
questions, the most dependent on moral support and the 
conscientious convictions of the people. And as the peo- 
ple are becoming more and more alive to the exercise of 
conscience on all public questions, the moral sense of the 
people is to be the essential element of success. This is 
the reason why the cause of Prohibition is destined to 
move rapidly forward and must succeed. 

Our cause is just, and commands the respect of all un- 
prejudiced, conscientious minds, and history has never 
furnished so grand a field for moral power through human 
effort, nor so strong an appeal to every good impulse of 



WEDNESDAY MORNING. 39 

our nature, as the demand for Prohibition of the Liquor 
Traffic. Besides, the best interests of our whole civiliza- 
tion are now in jeopardy from this vile traffic and must 
have relief, and this relief must come through political 
action. Every section of our own country and nearly 
every other nation is now making some effort to either 
restrain or destroy this formidable enemy of our race ; 
and the onward tide of moral conviction and determined 
action will soon make the demand for entire Prohibition 
paramount to all other considerations of a political char- 
acter ; this is just as sure to come as God reigns and the 
sun shines. Let each person put to himself this question, 
u On which side ought I to be found when the oppor- 
tunity for voting the liquor traffic out of existence is 
offered?" 

The Amendment for the Constitutional Prohibition of 
the traffic in alcoholic beverages in this State is now be- 
fore the people and demands our most serious and zeal- 
ous co-operation, and upon our action depends in a large 
measure the destiny of our future civilization both in 
State and nation ; and each individual voter is now to be 
held to a rigid responsibility for the result of his ballot 
on this momentous question. 

Mr. C. A. Hammond, of Syracuse, spoke as fol- 
lows : 

Mr, President : I came here with no set speech, but 
the remarks of our venerable friends who opened this 
discussion led me to think there is a misunderstanding 
here. I respect our friend Robert Graham. I don't 
want him to think that he is in the midst of enemies, or 
that there is any enemy of his here. I respect and honor 
our friend Neal Dow, as we all do. There is no man 
living in America to-day that I honor more than Neal 
Dow. I think, Mr. President, he was misunderstood by 
our friend Robert Graham. General Dow did not mean 



40 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

to say that everybody who says Prohibition is a failure 
means to lie. It is not a lie unless a man means to tell a 
falsehood. If a man utters that which is false, but be- 
lieves it to be true, it is not proper to call it a lie. Now 
General Neal Dow meant to say that many of those that 
declare it to be a failure and know better — that it is 
a lie in their mouths ; but it is not therefore a lie in the 
mouths of people who believe it to be true. I think 
also that our friend Mr. Graham misunderstood the ob- 
ject of the Prohibitionists when he said, as I understood 
him to say, that we proposed to prohibit entirely the 
manufacture and sale of alcohol for any purpose what- 
ever. I understood him to say that that was our pro- 
gramme. It is not. We don't propose to prohibit it for 
use in the arts. We don't propose to prohibit it for 
medical purposes. We only propose to prohibit its man- 
ufacture and sale as a beverage. 

Now, Mr. President, if our friend Mr. Graham goes 
into the police court of New York and finds there men 
arrested every morning for stealing, for this offence and 
that, he would not come here and say that the law 
against stealing is a failure ; that prohibition of stealing 
is a failure because the law is violated. Not a bit of it. 
But the question is, if we licensed stealing, would there 
be more stealing or less than there is now ? Does Pro- 
hibition prohibit to a certain extent ? Does it lessen the 
volume of intemperance more than a License law ? If 
so, Prohibition i3 the practical method of treating the 
Liquor Traffic. It is not a question of absolute suppres- 
sion ; but does Prohibition do more to suppress than a 
License law ? Now, let us get the question before us and 
discuss it, and avoid all personal reflections. 

Professor W. C. Wilkinson said : 

We have come here, Mr. President, to agree and not to 
differ ; and it has occurred to me, sir, that there might be a 



WEDNESDAY MORKING. 41 

distinction drawn that would bring us together. We are 
discussing here the subject of Prohibition, but the state- 
ment of the topic does not say prohibition of what. Now 
I propose to supply that omission, and I think we shall 
thereby find a platform on which we can all stand together, 
Mr. Graham and the Hon. Neal Dow, and one and all of 
us. Is, then, State and National Prohibition desirable and 
feasible — of what ? Of the saloon. Now, I would call 
on Mr. Graham ; does he question that ? Can't we there 
all agree, that whether we touch or not the manufacture 
and the sale in various ways, we may still abolish the 
saloon ? I, for my part, am a full-fledged, through -and- 
through Prohibitionist, and I take it that is the predom- 
inant sentiment of this audience. But, on the other 
hand, I am capable, as you are all capable, of being fair. 
I know, for instance, personally, I honor and I love Dr. 
Howard Crosby. I think that he would go with U3 
there. He would put the heavy hand of the law upon 
the saloon and blot it out. Let us, then, come to this 
understanding, that we are all agreed in desiring and en- 
deavoring to stamp the saloon out of existence. I, for 
my part, think that Prohibition will never have a fair 
chance to test itself until it is made a national thing. 
(Applause.) I remember a very stirring sentence that I 
used to read in my Virgil. It was this: " They were 
able, because they believed themselves to be able." 
Apply that. That is good Latin put into English. We 
are able, if we can only persuade ourselves that we are 
able. (Applause.) We should not have to wait until 
to-morrow to bring the thing to a focus all over this land, 
if we could only agree together and feel sure that we 
were able, as we are. Now, in order to be able we need 
to come together and mass ourselves in one solid, im- 
penetrable Macedonian phalanx, shield to shield, against 
this tremendous iniquity, and crush it into the earth 



42 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

and under the earth, and into hell, from which it 
came. 

The next topic which was taken up for discussion, ac- 
cording to the programme, was, 

Alcohol a Poison — Never to be Used for Bev- 
, erage Purposes. 

A paper upon this subject by Dr. N. S. Davis, of 
Chicago, was read by Mr. T. B. Wakeman. Before 
reading the paper, Mr. Wakeman said : 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : Very many 
good, grand, and noble things will be said at this Con- 
gress. That is evident. Very many most important 
considerations will be laid before the country through 
these discussions. But it seems to me that nothing can 
be more important than this calm, masterly, scientific 
paper which I hold in my hand, for it places the future 
of the Temperance or Total Abstinence movement firmly 
upon the impregnable corner-stone of science ; and that 
movement, thus resting, may proceed by restrictions, in 
one form or other, step by step, until it reaches the 
practical if not the absolute abolition of the whole bus- 
iness of alcohol poisoning. That is the point to which 
we are all directing our eyes — the new abolition party, the 
new abolition movement, which means the total extinc- 
tion of alcohol poison as a beverage, and in all practical 
and social use. You will recognize Mr. Davis not only 
asM.D., but as LL.D., and with as many titles as you 
choose to add ; for he stands in the forefront of the pro- 
fession in this country, and is so recognized the world 
over. Any word from him is of the utmost importance, 
because it is the verdict of science. 

The paper of Dr. Davis was as follows : 

Although alcohol is everywhere recognized by educated 
and scientific men as an active poison, capable, when 



WEDNESDAY MORNING. 43 

taken into the human system in considerable doses, of 
producing speedy death, yet when diluted with water 
and various flavoring materials, as in the different vari- 
eties of beer, wine, and distilled liquors, large numbers 
of people still regard it as a beverage capable of promot- 
ing strength, and protective against many of the ills and 
accidents incident to human life. This opinion is en- 
tertained not only by large numbers of the less educated, 
but also by many reputed eminent in literary circles, and 
who constantly inculcate the same through the news- 
paper press and many popular magazines. Thus, in the 
Popular Science Monthly, May, 1890, in an article on 
" Sumptuary Laws and their Social Influence, " the well- 
known writer uses such expressions as the following : 
" One chief difficulty with such laws is that if thoroughly 
enforced they do harm to those who never under any 
circumstances drink intoxicating liquors to excess, and 
yet who are benefited by their moderate use." Again, 
" The poor man, to whom a glass of beer or of wine 
taken decently and in order might not only do no harm, 
but might supply a positive want of his system," etc. 

It is just such assumptions as these, that people are 
" benefited by the moderate use" of alcoholic drinks, and 
that these are capable of " supplying some positive want 
of the system," daily reiterated in the columns of the 
public press by a class of flippant writers, that do much 
to encourage and perpetuate drinking habits in all 
classes of society. What the benefits of moderate use 
are, or what possible want of the system these drinks 
can supply, the writers alluded to never stop to explain. 
It may not be amiss, therefore, to seriously consider the 
question whether any form of alcoholic liquors, used as 
a beverage, can supply any real want or need of the hu- 
man system, or prove beneficial in any of the ordinary re- 
lations and conditions of life. To decide this question 



44 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

correctly we must know as accurately as possible what 
changes or effects alcohol produces when taken into the 
living system. When drank in the form of either fer- 
mented or distilled liquors it is rapidly absorbed from 
the stomach and carried into the blood, and with the 
blood into all the structures of the body, as shown many 
times by reliable chemists and physiologists in different 
countries. While in the blood it so modifies the cor- 
puscles and haemoglobin of that fluid as to lessen their 
oxygenation, or reception of oxygen from the air-cells of 
the lungs, and the liberation of the waste carbonic acid ; 
thereby directly diminishing the efficiency of the respir- 
atory process. This has been shown, with the aid of 
the microscope and the spectroscope, by Drs. B. W. 
Richardson and George Harley, of London, MM. Lepine 
and Porteret, of France, and Dr. J. D. Kales, of Chica- 
go. By its strong affinity for the albuminous elements 
of the tissues, its presence retards the natural metabolic 
or molecular changes constituting nutrition and secre- 
tion, thereby favoring fatty degenerations and the reten- 
tion of waste and morbid matters in the system. This is 
shown by the well-established fact that while alcohol is 
present in the system, less carbon dioxide is exhaled 
from the lungs, less urea, urates, sulphates, and phos- 
phates from the kidneys, and, in fact, a diminution of 
the sum total of all eliminations from the system with a 
lowering of temperature, as demonstrated long since by 
Dr. Boker, of Germany, and Dr. Hammond of this coun- 
try, and by many others in recent years. Still further, 
while alcohol is present in the blood and circulating 
through the brain and nervous structures, the nerve 
sensibility and action is diminished in proportion to the 
quantity present, constituting it an anaesthetic in the 
same sense as is ether and chloroform. Consequently, 
when taken in moderate doses, it diminishes the indi. 



WEDNESDAY MORXIXG, 45 

viduaPs consciousness of cold or heat, weariness or pain, 
thereby inducing him to think it warms him in winter, 
cools him in summer, and strengthens him when weak or 
weary, while in truth it does neither, but simply lessens 
his ability to judge correctly. And he only needs to 
have the dose increased to suspend his consciousness 
altogether, and render him incapable of either mental or 
physical action of any kind. Then, what possible benefit 
can an individual in ordinary health derive from the use, 
however moderate, of an agent that directly impairs the 
most important function of his blood corpuscles, lessens 
the natural and necessary changes in his tissues, and 
notably diminishes his nerve sensibility and muscular 
force? Or what possible u want of the system" can 
such an agent supply ? If it is said in reply that, by 
diminishing the nerve sensibility and removing tempo- 
rarily the consciousness of weariness of body or mind, it 
adds to the individual's comfort, and therefore benefits 
him, the question recurs, Is the temporary comfort gained 
by not only diminished nerve sensibility, but also by 
coincident impairment of the natural changes in the 
blood and tissues of the body, a real benefit or an im- 
portant injury, leaving the individual weaker than be- 
fore and more liable to attacks of sickness from all or- 
dinary causes ? That the latter is the actual result is 
proved not only by the most varied and rigid investiga- 
tions of scientific men, but by the results of actual ex- 
perience in every relation of human life. 

Many years since there appeared in the British and 
Foreign Medico- Chirurgical Beview an elaborate statement 
of the results of labor in the extensive brick-yards of 
England, in which the actual amount of each man's labor 
had been recorded, and the time lost on account of any 
kind of sickness for a series of years. A considerable 
number of the laborers were Total Abstainers from all 



46 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

alcoholic drinks, while the rest drank the regular allot- 
ment of leer permitted by the general regulations. The 
figures showed a large percentage more of labor done per 
man by the total abstainers, and a corresponding less 
loss of time from any kind of sickness or disability, than 
by the leer drinkers. Dr. Thornley, of England, states 
that in 1876 there were residing in Blackburn, Bolton, 
and Manchester 3400 Rechabites. In Blackburn the 
same year there were 3500 Odd Fellows. The Rechabites 
were most rigid abstainers, and they lost only 46 by death 
during the year, and had 16 cases of sickness per hun- 
dred. The Odd Fellows, composed of the most respect- 
able and orderly class of citizens, were for the most part 
non-abstainers or moderate drinkers, and they lost 76 by 
death and suffered 20 attacks of sickness per hundred. 
During another season, when typhoid fever was prevail- 
ing in the same district, the Rechabites lost by death 18 
per thousand ; the Odd Fellows, 31 per thousand, and 
the liquor-dealers, 150 per thousand. The reports of the 
Register-General of the British armies, and reports from 
some portions of our armies, show similar differences in 
the ratio of sickness and mortality wherever total ab- 
stainers are placed side by side with non-abstainers in 
any country or climate. Every life insurance company 
that has been in operation ten years or more, and has 
issued policies on the same terms to total abstainers and 
the most moderate and occasional drinkers, and kept a 
record of each, has proved clearly that the ratio of deaths 
in the latter always exceeds by a considerable degree that 
of the former. It is entirely safe to say that there is not 
an occupation or condition in human society in which 
those who use any variety of fermented or distilled 
liquors, even in the most u decent and orderly manner," 
do not furnish more cases of sickness and more deaths 
annually than are furnished by an equal number occupy- 



WEDNESDAY MORNIXTG. 47 

ing the same conditions, but totally abstaining from all 
such drinks. 

Indeed, there is not a greater or more destructive error 
existing in human society, yet one constantly fostered 
by a large class of popular writers, than the belief that 
beer and wine aud even distilled spirits do no harm if 
used in moderation, and may even supply some " want 
of the system." The often-repeated maxim that " it is 
not the temperate use, but the abuse of alcoholic drinks 
that does harm," embodies the error that is still induc- 
ing tens of thousands of honest citizens to rob themselves 
of an average of ten or fifteen years of life, through the 
agency of chronic diseases produced by the moderate use 
of alcohol. As I have said elsewhere, no more true or 
important remark was made in the noted discussion on the 
subject of Chronic Alcoholism in the London Pathologi- 
cal Society, than the one by Dr. George Harley when he 
said " that for every drunkard there wevejifty others who 
suffered from the effects of alcohol in one form or other, 
among whom were persons who had never been intoxi- 
cated in their lives." 

As alcohol, while present in the system, directly di- 
minishes nerve sensibility and muscular force, and retards 
the natural molecular changes in the bloud and tissues 
in proportion to the quantity taken, there is no conceivable 
" want''' that it can supply. It does not relieve the in- 
dividual from cold by warming him, nor from heat by 
cooling him, nor from weakness and exhaustion by nour- 
ishing his tissues, nor yet from affliction by increasing 
nerve power, but by simply diminishing the sensibility 
of the brain and nerves, and thereby lessening his con- 
sciousness of impressions whether from cold or heat, 
weariness or pain. In other words, it has in no degree 
lessened the effects of the evils to which he was exposed, 
but only lessened his consciousness of their existence^ 



48 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

and thereby impaired his judgment concerning their 
effects upon him. 

While the direct anesthetic effect of alcohol upon the 
nerve structures is thus deceiving the mind, its influence 
in retarding the oxygenation of the blood and the meta- 
bolic or nutritive and secretive changes in the tissues, if 
repeated from time to time, favors and finally develops 
such degenerative changes as constitute tubercular, case- 
ous, and fatty deposits in the lungs, liver, kidneys, heart, 
arteries, and brain, by which health is stealthily destroyed 
and life much shortened. If it could be conceded that 
an arch deceiver is one of the real needs of man, mentally 
and physically, then surely alcohol, as it exists in beer, 
wine, and distilled spirits is exactly the agent to " sup- 
ply that want, ' ' and no other. 

Professor Edwin V. Wright, of New York, said : 
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : I wish to voice 
briefly this highly interesting and scientific paper just read 
by Mr. Wakeman. No greater truth was ever told than 
that by Oliver Wendell Holmes when he spoke of alcohol 
as a remedial agent in this sense. He says, " If all of 
the intoxicating preparations in the shape of decoctions 
and infusions were gathered together and emptied into 
the sea, the sick and diseased would never suffer from 
that loss, But," he said further, "I could not vouch 
for the welfare of the fishes." Now it is a well-known 
fact that alcohol (and I speak by experience, somewhat 
as a chemist) is a purely and unmistakably devitalized 
element, containing nothing that makes any portion of 
the elements that enter into the human structure. The 
fact, Mr. President, that the mild and more delicate forms 
of animal and vegetable life die almost immediately under 
its baneful influence tells the story. It is well known 
by every physician who is a chemist that alcohol has a 
wonderful affinity for water, and that when taken into 



WEDNESDAY MORNING. 49 

the system it absorbs rapidly that essential element ; 
that it has, as the paper has stated, a wonderful affinity 
for the albuminous substances that enter into our food. 
That it coagulates and hardens and renders such elements 
indigestible, there can be no mistake. One of the sad- 
dest things that I have to reflect upon in the past, and 
especially in connection with the medical profession of 
the present day, is their utter ignorance, comparatively 
speaking, regarding the use of this poison as a remedy. 
They have been in the past and are to-day responsible to 
a wonderful degree — much more so than the great mass 
of good people think they are responsible — for the drunk- 
ards, and for a thousand and one diseases that I have 
not time to enumerate here this morning. That fearful 
phrase, used so commonly by physicians who don't know 
what they are talking about, " heart failure," is traceable 
to this demoniacal curse. The nervous diseases that afflict 
the human family to-day are traceable to the stealthy 
poison that alcohol is carrying on, in its devilish work in 
the human system. When the medical profession go to 
work and revise their text-books and introduce this ques- 
tion in their curriculum, they will do much toward mak- 
ing the systems of medicine worthy of the name of sci- 
ence. I hope that erelong there will be a great revival 
among medical men. I hope that such men as Mr. Davis 
will throw forth an inspiration that shall reach our lead- 
ers in the great colleges and other institutions of learn- 
ing, and thereby pave the way for the rising generation 
to escape the curses that have damned us in every age 
of the world's past history. I am thoroughly and un- 
mistakably in sympathy with the objects and purposes 
of this meeting. It seems good to be here, and it seems 
to be an inspiration that means a better future for the 
American people ; and not only for the American 
people,- but for the people of every nation who are 



50 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

capable of drinking in the inspiration from this gather- 
ing. 

Dr. Robert Boocock, of Flatbush, N. Y., said : 
I believe it was Dr. McCulloch who gave expression to 
this sentiment in the World's Temperance Convention of 
1862, that the last ditch in which the Temperance fight 
has to be fought is the scientific ditch, the medical ditch. 
As a practising physician for a number of years, I en- 
dorse all that has been said. There is one point I wish 
to emphasize, and only one point, by my rising this 
morning. It is the mistake of the popular mind that al- 
cohol will arrest the waste of tissue, will arrest the 
metamorphosis of the tissue under labor. That was the 
error of our medical men years ago. It is their mistake 
of to-day. It is the popular mistake. It has no power 
to arrest. I tell you what it does. It arrests the power 
of the body to throw out the waste parts of the system. 
Those waste parts remain. They load down the blood, 
the kidney, the liver. All the vital organs are loaded 
down by the waste tissues that ought, under natural law, 
to be thoroughly eliminated and thrown out. Now is 
the time when you read of sunstrokes. I don't remem- 
ber reading, in all the records, of a total abstainer being 
struck by the sun in the city of New York. It is those 
men that go and take the iced brandies and spirits that 
go out in the street and are struck down with the sun, 
it is said. It is the whiskey that is taking hold of the 
vital forces of the system and arresting the power of na- 
ture to throw out those waste parts that have become 
waste by the heat, by the exertion, by the nervous ener- 
gies of the day. What we want to do is just what our 
friend has said so forcibly. We want a change in our 
programme. We want the educational system in our 
public schools enforced to-day. The Woman's Christian 
Temperance Union never did a grander work for poster- 



WEDNESDAY MORNING. 51 

ity than they accomplished when they got that educa- 
tional law compelling the boards of education to teach 
the pernicious influences of alcohol and narcotics. But 
to-day you are robbed of the power because the liquor 
men grab the educational boards and strangle this eifort 
in its birth. 

Dr. T. S. Lambert, of New York City, spoke as fol- 
lows : 

Ladies and Gentlemen : I was required by the com- 
mittee to come before you and occupy five minutes at 
twelve o'clock to-day, to discuss what would require at 
least three days to discuss with any degree of satisfaction. 
But I was handed the three topics ; I will read them, 
and you will have the opportunity of receiving a copy 
at the door. They are not technically constructed, and 
you can read them as you go along and understand 
them. But you will want to reflect upon them at your 
home. 

Topic 1 is this, 

The Nature and Origin op Alcohol and Alcoholics, 

in a conspicuous way showing them to be inimical to 
life, especially to the cells and tissues, and particularly 
the most important, the gray nervous cells of the ner- 
vous centres of the human system. 
Topic 2 : 

The Action of Alcohol is not, in the Human Sys- 
tem, Nutrient or Calorific, but is an Irritant 
Narcotic Poison 

always, yet not having any known place as a proper 
medicine, but used as such is an evil continually. 

Topic 3, which was given to me to speak upon, is 
this : 



52 XATIOKAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

Experiments Made by the Best Medical Men liv- 
ing Prove the Injurious Character of all Al- 
coholics. 

I am averse to the use of alcoholics as a medical — what 
shall I call it ? 

A Voice : Agent. 

Dr. Lambert : I can't call it an agent. It is not an 
agent. I cannot call it a medicine consistently and con- 
scientiously. When Dr. N. S. Davis, whose admirable 
paper you have heard this morning, who is at the head 
of the medical profession in this country without a 
doubt — and most claim at the head of the medical pro- 
fession of the world — when he says that, during thirty 
years (and you can find it in an essay of his for sale by 
Brother Stearns — read it), he used, in the first ten years, 
about twenty gallons, and during the last twenty years 
he has not used a drop of alcoholic drinks in the form of 
medicine, I can follow in the steps of this glorious prede- 
cessor whom I have just mentioned, and say the same 
thing, I think with equal honor to myself. And I have 
never seen a man die who has been under my treatment, 
and no man ever received any kind of alcoholic drink of 
one sort or another through my advice. But I do not 
practice for a living. I only practice occasionally. All 
told, I suppose I have never had under my charge more 
than twelve or fifteen hundred people, and of those per- 
haps many of them were not very near dying. But I 
have had over a hundred cases in which I have been 
called to advise with the doctors, mostly in this city, 
with regard to persons who were supposed by those 
doctors to be dying of pneumonia, and not a soul of 
them died. Why not ? Because I advised that they 
should let the alcohol alone, and they did let it alone, 
and they got well. 

Dr. Bull, the chief surgeon — now. that Sands is gone — 



WEDNESDAY HOBXISTG. 53 

in New York City, down at the hospital, told the stu- 
dents who were attending his clinical lecture that in the 
hospital there were sixty-five per cent, of deaths from 
pneumonia, and that they had thought that it was time 
that there should be a change of treatment ; and haviug 
found that in the Temperance hospital of London there 
were only five per cent, of deaths from pneumonia, they 
thought they would try the experiment ; and the reason 
why he spoke thus was that he brought in the fifth who 
had been treated without alcohol, to show the students 
what a good recovery had been made with the fifth one. 
The first one who was treated died ; but he was dying, 
as they thought, when he was brought in. Three others 
got well and had been sent out, and this one went out 
the next day— four in succession cured of pneumonia 
without any alcoholic drinks, when the average of sixty- 
five per cent, has prevailed for years ! How is that in 
favor of Total Abstinence against the use of alcohol in 
medicine ? Why, you would better use it in beverages 
than in medicine. Jacob Huyler, the old iceman, was 
forced by a doctor who loved alcoholic drinks to take a 
lot of brandy in one single night — a whole quart bottlef ul 
—to swallow it down between the hours of ten at night 
and seven in the morning ; and the next day he was dead. 

A delegate stated that the great Catholic University 
just being established in "Washington proposes to estab- 
lish a Temperance Chair, and will call it the Father 
Mathew Chair. 

The next topic was, 

The Battle at Omaha. 

Upon this subject Professor A. R. Cornwall spoke as 
follows : 

Ladies and Gentlemen : I am most happy to recognize 



54 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

the fact that right here in New York, scarcely a mile 
from Tammany, under your President, Prohibition pro- 
hibits. When God is about to do a great work and 
overthrow a great evil among men, He chooses His time ; 
and His time is when that evil can be overthrown. He is 
the chief of politicians. He waited patiently for Harriet 
Beecher Stowe in the great moral battle. He always has 
a platform with unmistakable declarations ; and in it 
and in His politics — the Decalogue, the Golden Rule — 
He never wearies. Somehow, when this world steps 
ahead and goes higher, it is when men have got on to 
His platform. Now keep in mind, friends, we must all 
fight under God. The three Hebrew children said, 
" We will not bow down to thee, O king." They went 
into the fire, but they came out in good company. The 
beautiful queen said, " I will go to that government, I 
will remonstrate against this wickedness, and if I perish, 
I perish." No one perishes there. She was on God's 
platform. You remember when our fathers were about 
to start this Government, men were weak-kneed then, as 
they are now. You remember a young patriot said, 
" Let others do as they may— hug the delusive phantom 
of hope ; but as for me, give me liberty or give me 
death.' ' This mighty nation of ours was born right 
there. You remember, in that slavery struggle we talked 
of colonization, and it didn't work. We hadn't got on 
to God's platform. We talked of gradual emancipation. 
It didn't work. We drew a line across the country — 
" Over there slavery is right, and here it is a sin." 
Local Option. It wouldn't work. We drew a red line 
around a portion of the country, and said to the world, 
" Over there slavery shall be sustained by the Stripes and 
Stars ; you sha'n't put any on this side, over here." It 
didn't work, friends. We elected a President on it. We 
went into war. We were defeated. The cry of " Peace" 



WEDNESDAY MORNING. 55 

ran over the land. I called on my Congressman, u Why, 
in Heaven's name, don't you call on Lincoln to free the 
slaves?" u Why, you know," hereplied, "hecouldn't 
if he would and wouldn't if he could, simply because 
we elected him to stand on that ground." War came, 
and we were whipped. That Hundred-day proclamation 
came. The last battle we fought under it was a defeat. 
The Hundred days rolled away. Then that man of God 
(oh, picture in the book of time !) stood in the nation's 
gateway, on God's platform, put the trumpet to his lips, 
crying, " Forever free!" God heard it. Angels clap- 
ped their wings of gold. The north winds told it to the 
pines, the wild ducks to the sea. The slaves turned 
from their rice fields stealthily to hear it. And the very 
next battle we fought was a victory. We went on, on 
to victory ; got on God's platform. 

Now this world goes on, friends, through revolutions 
to higher grounds. Moral epochs have characters of 
their own. You do not determine their periods, you 
cannot hinder their coming. They have strange charac- 
ters. They never go backward. They come one at a 
time. In them there is a leading thought. It is not the 
only idea there. In the great army there is one Com- 
mander-in-Chief that makes the forces of mankind into 
friends and foes, and we are all of us on one side or the 
other. There is no escaping that. 

Now we have passed through two of these moral revo- 
lutions in this country — when our fathers began it, when 
we freed the slaves. Now, friends, we are in another ; 
and, as it has been said this morning, the slavery prob- 
lem — that awful question — was a local and tame one 
compared with this problem that has called you together 
here to-day. That one cost us more than 300,000 sweet 
lives. Was not that enough ? Since the war, my 
brother, in this same country the saloon, the accursed 



56 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

saloon alone, has cost lis more than a million and a half 
of lives. If there is a man or a woman here thirty-three 
years old, since you were born we have picked up two 
million boys and hurled them right into this monster's 
jaws. You could no more keep up the saloons in this 
country without training your boys for it, than you can 
grind out flour without wheat, my brethren. 

Now we say God chooses His time. He has chosen 
the battle-field. The battle rages. The hosts of heaven 
are interested. That field to-day, friends, is in Ne- 
braska. Now there is a strange state of things there. 
I have just come from that State. The children of this 
world, it is said, are wiser in their generation than the 
children of light. What does that mean ? All the 
whiskey powers on earth, from the infernal regions to 
the Omaha Bee, are all combining, putting their men 
there, travelling the country all over, putting their 
money there, their literature there, sowing the country 
knee deep. Friends, they see the points at stake. 

Now carry Nebraska, add that State to the 250,000 
square miles of Prohibition territory, and we are a mighty 
power in the Northwest — a free people ; and I affirm, 
without any sense of pride, that nowhere in the civilized 
world is there a freer, grander, more intelligent people 
than in that empire, unless it shall be in this hall thi3 
morning, friends. Now, if you let us be defeated in that 
battle, then what ? We have got to fight our battles over 
in the Dakotas, and Dakota will be in danger. The 
enemy sees it. He told me boldly at my hotel, " If we 
conquer in Nebraska, we will have you in two years in 
the Dakotas.' ' You just let us conquer, friends, in this 
fight (and we can do it), and in two years we will have 
Minnesota, and you will begin to feel the warm breezes 
of a free Northwest, friends. 

Now the battle rages, and by the arrangement of that 



WEDNESDAY MORNING. 57 

whole State the city of Omaha has been put under spe- 
cial charge of the Gospel Temperance Union. A mighty 
work is going on there, friends. God is stirring the 
waters. They have rented a large opera hall for the en- 
tire campaign. The work is advancing everywhere. A 
great deal has been said about Omaha and Council Bluffs. 
There is a strange state of things there. So the State 
sent me over there. The Bee said that every Sunday 
morning the city of Omaha got up and put on her clean 
clothes and went over and spent Sunday at Council Bluffs 
in a state of revelry. I have been over there, friends. 
You can find more drunkenness and debauchery in one 
hour — from twelve o'clock to one — in Omaha under High 
License saloons, than you will find in Council Bluffs if 
you hunt with a policeman three days. The High Li- 
cense saloon of Omaha is popular, gorgeous. It is attrac- 
tive. It is the most dazzling place in that city. Men, 
and young men, go there in continual stream, just as 
unblushingly as you would go to your bank, friends, or 
to your churches, friends. It is constantly full. Over in 
the Bluffs the saloon is an old rookery. Even a hog-pen 
has been used for a saloon. They are in back alleys. 
Nobody is near them or around them, nobody going into 
them, that you will see. Yet there is drunkenness there. 
There has been a great deal said about Iowa. I am 
as direct from Iowa as the train could bring me. I found 
there a strange state of things. I have been into about 
twelve county seats. There is not a prisoner in one of 
the jails. (Applause.) A district judge told me that 
more than sixty of their jails were entirely empty. Ono 
county began Prohibition with $72,000 debt. She would 
send a baker's dozen of prisoners to the State's prison 
in a batch at a single session of court. Her arrests were 
from twenty-four to thirty-eight every month there in 
that one county seat. To-day what do you find ? The* 



58 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

arrests for all crimes there are not three a month. She 
does not send one to State's prison oftener than once in 
two years for the past four years, friends. Then, you 
take that State generally. Oh, my brother, the gentle 
dews of heaven have come down upon it through the 
blessings of Prohibition. The loafer is not in the village. 
There is great prosperity. You subtract every debt claim 
against that State, and its treasury has $157,000 left. 
The Hon. Frank Jackson, Secretary of State of Iowa 
(and who is better authority than he?), says, " Prohi- 
bition in Iowa is a wonderful success. It has lessened 
crime, and, with a few exceptions in river towns, is as 
well enforced as any criminal law on our statute books." 
Now, friends, Omaha must have help. You must help 
Omaha. There is a Spartan band there. That city will 
turn the scales, pro or con. We can take the city. We 
must have help from you. You must contribute of your 
means. We must be encouraged there, and we are go- 
ing to carry this war, going to conquer, friends. We 
will not surrender, we will not compromise. We will 
not give up our arms. We will push on until we have 
driven the lion home to his lair, and ripped off his 
brindled hide in his very den. (Applause.) 
Mr. Lorenzo Waugh, of California, said : 
I was born in Virginia, August 28th, 1808. I saw my 
father start to the War of 1812, and remember it very 
well ; and I have in my possession the military title of 
my grandfather, James Wall, here in this city, issued in 
1799. I never drank whiskey, never felt the effects of 
intoxication in my life. I have been a sober boy all my 
life, and never used tobacco. I have been among the 
Indian tribes and all around, and I am very happy to- 
day, and I wanted to come up to stand beside this man 
here a moment (General Dow). He is four years my senior. 
Of course I take, my hat off to Neal Dow. 



WEDNESDAY MORNING. 59 

Now I want to make an apology for my brother 
Graham. They bore down a little on him. The power 
of education is a wonderful thing, and I am sensible that 
it is his early education that drew him into the statements 
that he made to us boys to-day in reference to the ne- 
cessity of having whiskey to drink. Saul of Tarsus was 
a good boy, and he stood to hold the clothes of those 
that threw stones to kill good old Stephen ; and all Saul 
of Tarsus needed then was conversion. That is all my 
dear brother needs, and he will be all right, and a noble 
advocate of Prohibition. 

Mr, Graham : That is a very modest old man. 

The President : There is an English name familiar to 
workers in the Temperance cause in America — the name 
of a gentleman I have never had the pleasure of meeting 
until this morning, and I asked him to come to the plat- 
form to give me the pleasure of shaking his hand. Toil 
will remember who it is that brought out Dr. Richardson 
so firmly on the right side. You remember who it is 
that brought Cardinal Manning and Canon Farrar and 
men of that kind to the right platform. And I have 
great pleasure in asking you to salute, for the moment, 
Mr. Robert Rae, who is upon the platform. (Applause.) 

Mr. Rae, in response to the greeting of the audience, 
said : 

I am very sorry to detain you even for one minute, at the 
close of your conference, to say a single word. But I 
wish to thank you very cordially for your very kind re- 
ception, and to say how much I have enjoyed the pro- 
ceedings of this morning. I have met old friends, and 
have heard the paper of Dr. Davis, of Chicago, whom I 
met in England some three or four years ago, when he 
came over to us to represent the American Medical As- 
sociation, of which he was then, and I suppose still is, the 
President. And my old friend, General Neal Dow, I met 



60 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

in Scotland somewhere between thirty and forty years 
ago — 1857 ; thirty-three years since I had the honor of 
joining in the welcome to Ncal Dow in the city of Glas- 
gow. Since that time I have been much engaged, as 
some of you are aware, in the Temperance work in Eng- 
land, and I hope, at the close of to-morrow morning's 
sitting, to say a little upon the Temperance movement 
in Great Britain. In the mean time, I have to thank you 
very cordially for your very kind reception. 
The meeting adjourned until 1.45 p.m. 

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. 

The session was opened with singing, and prayer was 
offered by Rev. Dr. Tyler, of New York. 
The first topic taken up was : 

The Line on which all Enemies of the Saloon 
May Unitedly do Battle, whether they be Be- 
lievers in Restrictive Measures or in Radical 
Prohibition. 

Rev. Dr. I. K. Funk, of New York, opened the dis- 
cussion, as follows : 

The time has come when every man hostile to the 
saloon will have his fidelity to the truth and his courage 
tested to the utmost, and, for one, I am glad of it. Let 
every one who hates the Liquor Traffic adopt for his 
motto the words which William Lloyd Garrison nailed 
to the mast-head of his paper, u I am in earnest ; I will 
not equivocate ; I will be heard." Let us face the fu- 
ture bravely ; let us not hesitate to turn our backs, 
whenever it may be necessary, upon the opinions and 
policies of the past. Why should we longer permit our 
way to be blocked by dead men's bones I 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. 61 

To-day more liquor is consumed per capita in the 
United States than when Lyman Beecher, Father Mathew, 
John B. Gough, and William E. Dodge — grand, good 
men all — began their crusades. The editor of the New 
York Tribune — and he is no fanatic, he is no crank, 
of this I take pleasure to assure those of our friends who 
are here from a distance — this editor said in last Sunday's 
issue of his paper, u In spite of all these motives and 
much appeal to them, the consumption of liquor in- 
creases. . . . The actual consumption of liquor has not 
decreased, nor has it diminished in proportion to popu- 
lation. " Forgetting the things that are past, breaking 
the bands when necessary wherewith we are bound 
through veneration for methods that carry gray hairs, 
casting aside every weight that hinders, let us press for- 
ward in this race against the awful, infernal liquor 
power of America. 

Certainly, there should be a union of effort, a massing 
of forces hostile to the saloon, as far as this is practi- 
cable without violation of principle. If as yet there is not 
sufficient education in temperance principles through 
agitation and controversy to secure this massing of forces 
without a compromise of principles, in Heaven's name, let 
the agitation go forward and the massing of forces be 
postponed. 

Lord Nelson, just before the naval battle of Trafalgar, 
said, " Few orders will be issued, but no man will do 
wrong who places his ship close alongside the ship of an 
enemy.' ' In this awful battle, into the hottest of which 
we are soon to enter, this decisive battle, I trust, against 
those powers of darkness that make up the liquor forces, 
no man will do wrong who trains his batteries upon the 
saloon. He may not do this in my way or your way, 
but if his guns rake the saloon fore and aft, God blesa 
him ! 



62 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS, 

Is it practicable at this stage of the battle, on any part 
of the battle-field, to mass the Temperance forces of 
America ? Surely, if practicable, nothing could be more 
desirable. As Matthew Arnold would put it, the first 
thing necessary, in order to unite, is to see clearly and 
think straight. Never was there a time when it was 
more necessary to see clearly and think straight on Tem- 
perance than this day and hour, and right here. 

Is there a line on which all the enemies of the saloon 
may unitedly do battle, whether they are friends or foes 
of absolute Prohibition ? If there is such a line, our 
problem is to find it. 

Let us look at the situation. Please note carefully 
these three propositions : 

I. A great majority of the voters of thi3 country are 
in favor of the Restriction of the Liquor Traffic, so far, 
at least, as the forbidding of sales on Sunday, on 
election days, and after midnight, and sales to drunk- 
ards and to minors. No one, I think, will question that 
proposition. 

II. A large proportion of this great majority of the 
voters of the United States are ready to go so far as to 
forbid wholly the sale of distilled liquors as a beverage, 
and the sale of alcoholic liquors of any hind to be drunk on 
the premises. This class includes such restrictionists as 
Dr. Howard Crosby and Leonard W. Bacon. 

III. A large proportion of this great majority of voters 
who favor Restriction (probably two thirds of the entire 
number) believe in the total suppression of the sale of al- 
coholic liquors for leverage purposes, and some hundreds 
of thousands of this large proportion believe that, to 
suppress effectually the evils of the traffic, it is necessary 
to have "Prohibition, State and National, and a party 
that believes in it behind it." The other and larger portion 
believe in Prohibition, but are not ready as yet to favor 



WEDNESDAY AFTEItNOOX. 63 

the organization of a political party in its behalf. This 
portion we shall call Non-Partisan Prohibitionists; the 
other, Partisan Prohibitionists. 

Then the situation is this : a great majority of all the 
voters of the country are agreed in their opposition to 
the saloon so far as to honestly, heartily favor its pro- 
hibition on Sundays, on election days, after midnight, 
and the prohibition of sales to minors and drunkards ; 
but this majority is divided into three classes, broadly 
speaking : (1) Those who believe in Restriction, but do 
not believe in absolute Prohibition ; (2) the Non-Partisan 
Prohibitionists ; (3) the Partisan Prohibitionists. 

Now the first division of this great majority of voters, 
while honestly favoring the prohibitive and restrictive 
measures mentioned, are not ready to accept as common 
ground for harmonious action the dictum of Division 
No. 3, " Prohibition, State and National, and a Party 
behind It," nor the dictum of Division No. 2, "The 
Total Suppression of the Sales of Alcoholic Liquors for 
Beverage Purposes." On the other hand, a large part 
of Division No. 2 and all of Division No. 3, which in- 
cludes a large proportion of the most active Temperance 
workers in the country, as nearly all the Good Templars 
and the Sons of Temperance, and the voters influenced 
by the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, 
are conscientiously opposed to restriction through the 
License system. They believe that " License, High 
or Low, is Sinful." Of the truth of this they are in- 
flexibly persuaded. The problem is how to get these 
two general divisions of this majority of voters to act 
together in securing and enforcing restrictive laws up to 
the level of the education of the public mind. United, 
they would be resistless ; divided, all efforts along re- 
strictive lines are crippled. Evidently there can be no 
united action as yet on the platform " Prohibition, and 



64 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONeRESS. 

a Party behind It," or on the platform of Non-Partisan 
Prohibition ; and equally evident is it that there can be 
no united action on the platform u Restriction through 
License." 

Both of these general divisions of this majority of voters 
favor restriction, but one division says, " Restriction 
and Licenses' 1 and the other division says, " Restriction 
and Prohibition." The one division will never accept 
License, the other division is not ready to accept abso- 
lute Prohibition, but both divisions oppose liquor selling 
on Sunday, on election days, after midnight, and to 
drunkards and to minors. Now it is manifest that if 
it were possible for agreement upon a basis for that por- 
tion of the Temperance work which we call restrictive — • 
a basis that will leave out License on one side and Pro- 
hibition absolute on the other— this great majority of voters 
who believe in Restriction can work harmoniously up to 
whatever may be the level of the Temperance education of 
the public mind. Can such a basis be framed and ac- 
cepted without a compromise of principle ? Any basis 
that requires a compromise of principle is wholly out of 
the question. It could not be accepted for a moment. 

Such a basis of agreement would read something like 
the following : 

I. Abrogation of all License Laws. 

II. The immediate adoption of prohibitive, restrictive 
laws that shall say : Any person who sells liquor on Sun- 
day, on election days, after midnight, or to drunkards or 
to minors, shall be fined or imprisoned, or both. Any person 
who opens a saloon in an election district against the written 
protest of a majority of the voters residing therein shall be 
fined or imprisoned \ or both. 

Then, as the public mind ripens, additional laws could 
be enacted, as : Any person who sells liquor after sun- 
down shall be fined or imprisoned, or both. Any person 



WEDNESDAY AFTERSTOOX. 65 

who sells liquor to be drunk on the premises shall be 
fined or imprisoned, or both. Any person who sells 
distilled liquors shall be fined or imprisoned, or both ; 
and so on toward absolute Prohibition. 

This basis would give, it seems to me, as effective re- 
strictive laws as we have now, but in a different way. 
It never once says u permit ;" it never once says, 
u Any person who pays for the privilege shall have the 
right to sell except on Sunday, and to a drunkard," etc. 
It also eliminates the revenue part of the problem, and 
this will be a great gain ; for Restriction will not then 
mean an entrenchment of the traffic behind the cupidity 
of the tax-payer, and the demoralizing spectacle of a 
great government securing a revenue from the vices of 
its citizens will cease. 

Such a basis would leave the Prohibitionist free, as 
now, to advocate and push " Prohibition Absolute," and 
u /Prohibition, State and National, with a Party behind 
It." As far as the Restrictionist is ready to go, from 
time to time, the Prohibitionist joins hands with him, 
and helps him in his measure ; and when he stops, the 
Prohibitionist goes on alone, as now. 

On this basis, in my judgment, the three divisions of 
the enemies of the saloon, those who believe in prohibi- 
tive restriction, and who constitute a great majority of 
all the voters in this country, could work harmoniously. 
The restriction that they would favor would be Prohibi- 
tion every time. It would be Prohibition by slices and 
by crumbs, but it would be every time genuine Prohibi- 
tion bread — bread that has in it none of the poison of 
legal sanction. This basis will not unite these three di- 
visions on absolute Prohibition. For this further har- 
mony, time, experience, education are essential. But 
with the abrogation of all License laws we will all be 
moving along the same road. The difference between- 



66 HATXONAL TEMPERAKCE CONGKESS/ 

us will then be the different distances we have moved ; 
not as now, when we move on divergent roads. To unite 
on a road along which all honest opponents of the saloon 
can travel slowly or rapidly, as they choose, will be an 
immense gain. 

But now consider several objections : 

I. The repeal of all License laws will mean Free Rum. 
Will it necessarily mean that ? I cannot see that it will. 
Just as fast as the people are ready for a new positive 
restrictive law, they can have it as easily as now. Why, 
to forbid saloon selling on Sunday, need you give legal 
sanction to its sale on Monday ? Why, to stop selling 
on Sunday or to a minor, need you say, " Any person 
shall have the right to sell liquor except on Sundays or 
to a minor" ? In what single respect would your restric- 
tive law be less effective if it simply said, ' ' Any person 
who sells liquor on Sunday or to a minor shall be sen- 
tenced to jail" ? The former gives legal sanction, 
the latter does not. The former runs counter to the 
conscience of all Prohibitionists who believe License 
vicious in principle, and hence divides the majority op- 
posed to the saloon. And if we have a law that makes 
it a jail offence for any person to conduct a saloon against 
the protest of a majority of voters in the vicinage, there 
will be far less Free Rum than now. 

II. Again. It is objected that to prohibit only in part 
is to give legal assent to the part that remains. To this 
I reply, the silence of the law is not the same as its 
sanction. Toleration is one thing, sanction is another. 
John Brown says, u The wise teacher is he who knows 
when not to see. He ignores many a wrong — does not 
seem to see it." Every parent does that. It would be 
radically different did the parent or teacher recognize and 
endorse the wrong. The Apostle tells us that in times past 
God winked at certain evils — that is, ignored or simply 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. 67 

tolerated them. That was not sanctioning or endorsing 
these evils on the part of God. The law in many States 
tolerates profanity — that is, says nothing about it. If the 
law says, Any man who opens a saloon in any election 
district against the protest of a majority of the voters in 
that district shall be sentenced to jail, and should further 
add, This law shall not he so interpreted as to give any legal 
sanction to the opening of any saloon, or to abridge in any 
way the rights of the people to proceed under the common law 
against a saloon as a nuisance — now, how would such a 
law give sanction ? As far as it goes, it speaks in the 
language of Prohibition. That is a slice of Prohibition 
after which I, for one, hunger. 

III. But it is urged that such a basis of harmony would 
require a union of voters, regardless of party, for the elec- 
tion of at least legislative candidates who are ready to 
enact such restrictive laws, and this would carry with it 
the endorsement of a party that believes in License. This 
does not necessarily follow. I am conscientiously op- 
posed to voting for the candidates of any political party 
which favors, directly or indirectly, License, high or 
low. It is far more important what the party believes 
than what its candidates believe. Then, if we do not 
unite for the election of candidates, what is the benefit 
of this basis ? Much, in many ways : 

(1) It gets rid of License, the mightiest of the obstacles 
in the way of absolute Prohibition. 

(2) It destroys the revenue argument, so strong with 
many tax-payers. 

(3) It enables all hostile to the saloon to agitate all 
along the same line, and such agitation would always be 
along the line of Prohibition — Prohibition that differs in 
degrees, but Prohibition. This is also an immense gain. 

(4) There will be avoided the necessity, scandalous 
to many, that exists now of Prohibitionists, who believe 



68 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CCWGBESS. 

License a sin, fighting the legislative plans of such honest 
High License Restrictionists as Howard Crosby and Judge 
Noah Davis. Every step these Restrictionists take along 
the line of this proposed basis will be a step toward the 
advance ground of absolute Prohibition, not as now, as 
I honestly believe, under the High License programme, 
a step away from Prohibition. 

Finally, should this basis of agreement be adopted, the 
party Prohibitionist will stand just where he now stands. 
It will be as true then as now that the only solution of 
the liquor problem is State and National Prohibition, 
and a Party behind it. There will be no slacking of effort 
along this line, not one iota. But a rock of offence, a 
bone of most bitter contention between the Prohibition- 
ists and Restrictionists will be removed by this change 
of basis for restrictive work — the change from permis- 
sive restriction to prohibitive restriction. 

Rev. "W. R. Huntingdon, D.D., of Grace Church, New 
York, spoke as follows : 

A civil svsteoi like that under which we Americans 
live has its great and preponderating advantages ; but 
it has this disadvantage, that no matter how wholesome 
or desirable a law may be, it will not be efficiently exe- 
cuted unless there lie behind it a strong force of public 
opinion favorable to its execution. This is a corollary 
to the doctrine of universal suffrage. We may try to shut 
our eyes to it, but it is like shutting one's eyes to the 
lightning ; we see it all the same. 

Were it not for this fact I should personally feel much 
attracted by the scheme for united action so ably and 
persuasively set before us by the editor of The Voice. 

If by such simple concessions as he has asked for— 
namely, the disuse of a word which is obnoxious to those 
whom he represents, and the relinquishment of the rev- 
enue derived from the issue of licenses ; if, I say, by such 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON". 69 

inconsiderable concessions as these on the part of Re- 
strictionists such results as he has pictured could be 
brought to pass, I, for one, would most gladly and thank- 
fully take up with his propositions ; for I can perfectly 
well understand how a man who holds that to quench 
thirst by any liquid that contains an appreciable per- 
centage of alcohol is an act wrong in itself and hateful 
in the sight of God — I can perfectly well understand why 
such a man should vehemently resent the State's saying 
to even a single one of its citizens desirous of selling 
liquor, * ' Licet. It is lawful. n I do not share the con- 
viction which lies behind that feeling. To my mind, 
perhaps because of a year passed in a chemical labora- 
tory, alcohol has its place in the scheme of nature just 
as really as dynamite has its place there. And as we 
very properly hedge the manufacture and sale of the one 
with all manner of restriction, so I think may we with 
equal propriety recognize, but at the same time limit by 
restrictions sharper still the manufacture and sale of the 
other. 

But I can, I repeat, quite enter into the feelings of the 
friend who dissents utterly from this view of the matter, 
and I should be more than ready to avoid the use of a 
word that gives his conscience offence. 

The question is, " Would the concession accomplish 
anything in the way of practical results V I doubt it. 
Instead of being better off, we should, I gravely fear, be 
far worse off than before, for we should find ourselves 
more scandalized than ever by the spectacle of unexecuted 
law. The Government of Russia has been wittily described 
as " Absolute Monarchy, tempered by assassination." 
I am tempted to characterize the scheme of Dr. Funk 
as " Free Rum, tempered by fine and imprisonment.' * 
If we could only depend on the fine and imprisonment 
with the same degree of certainty with which we oan 



70 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

count upon the Free Rum, it might be well enough ; but 
when you look at the state of the docket in our munici- 
pal courts to-day ; when you consider the difficulty of 
enforcing restrictive law as things are, with the number 
of the saloons limited, with what sort of courage or hope- 
fulness can you look forward to enforcing restrictive law 
with the number of the saloons unlimited ? 

Mr. President, I turn to more encouraging fields of 
thought and of endeavor. Let me persuade you to for- 
get for a little season the fascinations of politics, and to 
consider methods personal and social. 

Suffer me to mention a few homely and unexciting, 
but, as I believe, efficacious methods of opposing the 
spread of drunkenness : 

1. Personal influence. — This was the main depend- 
ence of the brave hearts who started the Temperance 
movement in this country ; why should we turn our 
backs on it and say, " If we cannot reform drunkards by 
wholesale legislation, we will give up the effort at reform- 
ing them altogether V ' I confess to very little faith in sal- 
vation by statute, but to unbounded faith in the power of 
personal influence ; for, after all, the drunkards of the 
United States are a definite number of individuals. It 
is a number we cannot ascertain, but still it is a definite 
number, which, if known, could be written out in Arabic 
numerals. Now, who doubts that if every separate soul 
in this great company of the intemperate were to become 
a centre upon which converging rays of influence from, 
say, a dozen friendly and neighborly souls met — who 
doubts that by that grace of God which is never so effi- 
caciously ministered as through personal channels, we 
should see wonders accomplished, lives purified, lost 
reputations retrieved, homes made happy ? 

2. A Sound Public Opinion.— Be we Prohibitionists 
or Restrictionists, we can all do something toward the 



WBDKESDAY AFTEKtfOOtf. 71 

formation of a public opinion unfavorable to the drinking 
usages that now prevail. I am sanguine enough to be- 
lieve that public opinion is improving. In social circles, 
where formerly intoxication was looked upon as venial, 
it is now scouted as disreputable. I am far from regard- 
ing the clubs of New York as good schools of temperance, 
but I am credibly informed that they are much less fre- 
quently schools of intemperance than they used to be. 
But whether public opinion be improving or not, im- 
proved it must be if we are to maintain ourselves as a 
sober people among the nations of the earth. 

3. A Substitute for the Saloon. — Man is a gregarious 
creature. It is the love of talk almost as much as the 
love of drink that carries men into saloons. You may 
shout yourselves hoarse repeating, " The saloon must 
go !" u Go," it will not, until something comes to take 
its place. And this blessed result cannot be brought to 
pass by well-meant but feeble efforts made on churchly 
and/philanthropic lines. You cannot wean men from 
the saloon by hiring a room, running up a blue window 
shade inscribed " Temperance drinks," and garnishing 
the walls with Scripture texts. Greater than Ericsson, 
greater than Edison, will be the Heaven-sent man who 
shall invent an effective and bona fide substitute for the 
saloon. 

4. Improved Dwellings for the Poor — in efforts for which 
we may all work together. Dismal homes are caused by 
drunkenness, but so also is drunkenness caused by dismal 
homes. The great need of the United States is a revival 
of the home idea, the reinstatement of the family in its 
old place of honor. But what sort of family life is 
possible in many portions of our great cities ? My ad- 
jective " dismal" is not half strong enough ; " hellish" 
would be none too strong. 

5. Again, we may all work together in promoting the 



72 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

introduction of the useful knowledge of cooking into the 
common schools. When the normal demands of hunger 
are not properly met, the abnormal demands of thirst as- 
sert themselves. For the most part, bad cooking is a sin 
of ignorance. "We hear much of the need of technical 
instruction for our boys ; let us also, while we are about 
it, provide training for our girls in the technique of the 
kitchen. It is better that a girl shall be able to bake a 
loaf of bread that will digest than that she should know 
the longitude of Pekin. 

6. Finally, coming back to law, I believe we might 
unite in a common warfare against the four distilled spirits 
that are answerable for the most of our drunkenness. I 
am persuaded that public opinion is ripe for Prohibition 
to this extent, and that even in our great cities it might 
be enforced, at least over large areas. 

In France, if you want to buy tea, you go to a drug- 
gist's — that is, because coffee is the national drink. If 
we can only succeed in relegating distilled spirits to the 
same shelf with chloral and laudanum, we shall not in- 
deed have put an end to man's indulgence in them, but 
we shall have made the non-medicinal use of strong 
stimulants as disreputable as the non-medicinal use of 
strong narcotics already is. 

" Whiskey, brandy, ram, and gin, 
Against these four let war begin." 

Mr. President, these six suggestions of mine have noth- 
ing at all startling or original about them. I throw them 
out for what they are worth. If there is common sense 
behind them, they will appear to the common sense of 
those to whom they are addressed. 

The next speaker was General A. B. Nettleton, of Min- 
neapolis, who read the following paper : 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : While the views 
to be expressed at this Temperance Congress should and 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. 73 

will have just as much of weight as they have of practical 
sense and reason in them, yet it sometimes tends to clear 
the atmosphere if it is known beforehand what relation 
a speaker on any one phase of a many-sided question 
maintains toward that question as a whole. For this 
reason, only, I preface what I have to say on the special 
topic assigned me with this brief confession of present 
faith. 

I believe, with Drs. Davis and Richardson, that physi- 
ologically alcohol has no proper place in the healthy hu- 
man system. I believe its social use as a luxury or as a 
symbol and means of hospitality and comradeship is sense- 
less and an unspeakable curse to the human race ; and I 
believe its sale as a beverage— especially as represented 
by the saloon system — because incompatible with the 
public safety — ought to be prevented by enforced laws 
having the approval of a strong majority of the people. 
Until this final policy can be installed, I believe we 
ought to come as near to it as popular suffrage will 
permit. 

The liquor power is unscrupulous, united, aggressive, 
effective. The Temperance forces have thus far been di- 
vided, cowardly, inefficient. As a result, the saloon is 
to-day almost everywhere on top. Can this be changed ? 
If not, then has the hope of the world set in darkness. 
If there is to be no turning back of this tide of drink, if 
the Rum Propaganda is to meet no adequate check, then 
will life on this planet shortly lose all value for decent 
and reasonable people. 

But the situation can he changed. God has not forgot- 
ten the world, and the stars in their courses are ready 
now as ever to fight for people who have a righteous 
cause wedded to common sense on their own part. The 
situation can le changed j and if the beginning of that 
change does not appear before we are half a year older, 



74 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

it will be largely the fault of the men and women who 
are within these walls to-day. 

No one person is wise enough to name the line on which 
all enemies of the saloon can best unite their efforts. 
The co-operation of many minds is necessary to this very 
task of pointing out the way to co-operation. A cut- 
and-dried programme, assuming to embody ultimate wis- 
dom, would justly bring suspicion upon itself. This is 
an hour for modesty. Before tendering my contribution 
to the common fund of suggestion, I wish to give expres- 
sion to a number of truisms which may have a bearing on 
the main subject. 

1. A reform which depends for success on laws, to be 
enacted and enforced by majorities under universal 
suffrage, must be conducted in view of this fundamental 
condition, else the battle is lost before it begins. The 
reformer in this field is at liberty to choose his mode of 
attack. He may rely solely on educational methods and 
moral suasion, being content with remote and conjectural 
results, in which case he is independent of majorities ; 
but the moment he undertakes the present betterment of 
the situation, and attempts to use a popular majority 
vote as a chief agency for promoting his movement, he is 
bound to consider the limitations of the instrument he 
employs. Before the persimmon can be brought to 
the ground the length of the selected pole must be con- 
sulted. 

2. On the other hand, the reformer who starts out by 
diluting his reform to the point of worthlessness for the 
sake of quickly getting a majority to endorse it, is more 
fool than reformer. Amid all temptations to the con- 
trary, it is necessary to remember that the reform is the 
end, while majorities are only the means. 

3. No citizen should be asked, for the sake of harmony 
on the Temperance question, to ignore the outcry of his 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. 75 

own conscience ; but it is perfectly fair to ask an unrea- 
sonable saint whether it is not possible that he has hon- 
estly mistaken self-conceit buttressed with obstinacy for 
an advanced conscience. 

4. One prime condition of the desired co-operation 
must be mutual respect and resulting courtesy of speech 
and conduct on the part of those undertaking to work 
together. Hitherto about one shot in four fired from 
Temperance batteries has been aimed at the common ene- 
my, the other three at our friends. 

5. In any such compromise arrangement it must needs 
be that some excellent people will be left out, at either 
end of the line, simply because an attempt to stretch the 
union movement sufficiently to take in their extreme po- 
sitions would split the movement without benefiting 
them. This disparages no one, it simply marks the lim- 
itations of human co-operation. 

6. In this matter it is vastly more important that there 
be some plan of effectual co-operation, than that the best 
possible plan be discovered at the outset. If the move- 
ment is started in a right spirit, not attempting to cover 
too much ground at first, it will grow, and experience 
will quickly correct errors and point out the natural 
limits of the union. 

Since a difficulty clearly stated is half removed, it may 
be helpful to classify roughly the enemies of the saloon 
in accordance with their characteristic views, in order 
to see whether any plan of campaign is possible in which 
all may honorably unite. No two persons would make 
just the same classification ; no such classification can 
pretend to accuracy ; lines of difference are often ob- 
scure ; one element overlaps and shades into its neigh- 
bor ; with added or diminished light and resulting 
change of opinion individuals are constantly passing for- 
ward or backward from one class to another. And out« 



76 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

side of all classes is a great mass of citizens of both sexes 
who could not be said to have any definite opinions or 
position on this question. Under the stimulus of discus- 
sion and agitation great numbers of these may safely be 
counted on the right side at critical junctures, because 
they love their homes and their children, and have an 
inherited instinct of good citizenship. 

As they present themselves to my mind, those who may 
fairly be styled enemies of the American saloon naturally 
fall into the following groups : 

The left wing : Orderly, reputable, and sometimes Chris- 
tian people, who hold that wine and kindred beverages, 
used in moderation, are a permissible luxury if not a 
positive good — at least for adult males who like them ; 
but that public drinking places tend to undue tempta- 
tion, excess, and crime, and therefore ought to be restrict- 
ed in many ways, if not wholly suppressed. 

The left centre : Persons who, while vigorous oppo- 
nents of the open saloon, and themselves abstainers and 
believers in the general hurtfulness of alcoholic bever- 
ages, yet deny or doubt the logical and moral right of a 
voting majority to prevent by law all access to such bev- 
erages on the part of the minority — at least until the sac- 
ramental use of alcohol has been distinctly abandoned by 
the Christian Church. 

The right centre : Citizens who believe that the drink 
habit as it exists in America is an intolerable curse ; that 
the drink traffic as aggressively conducted is a prime 
cause and not a result of the drink habit and its result- 
ing ruin ; that, being a form of trade destructive of the 
public welfare, the Liquor Traffic may rightfully be sup- 
pressed by the State in the reasonable exercise of its po- 
lice powers ; and that until strong majorities are ready 
to enact and enforce entire suppression the policy should 
be one of sharp legal repression through restrictive tax- 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. 77 

ation or any other measures that experience proves to be 
better. 

The right wing : Largely consisting of persons who 
hate the drink habit and the allied drink traffic with a 
perfect hatred ; who believe that, as for them, the only 
righteous and statesmanlike course is to insist upon com- 
plete financial divorce between the Liquor Traffic and the 
Government, National, State, and local, and upon the 
immediate suppression of the traffic itself, root and 
branch. But while steadily and openly working to this 
end, and until their reform can command the necessary 
majority vote, the members of this group are honestly 
willing to co-operate with other good citizens in apply- 
ing to the Liquor Traffic such forms of Restriction as in 
their view do not involve complicity in the wrong. 

The very extreme right : The members of this small 
but active group do not remain in one place long enough 
to be classified as to their belief, but at latest accounts, 
and just before they last disappeared over the horizon 
in front, they held about as follows : that in the legal 
treatment of the Liquor Traffic anything less than Prohi- 
bition, instant, absolute, and universal is a compromise 
with sin, and hence impossible to the conscientious citi- 
zen ; that any form of Restriction is at best only a pal- 
liative, tending to ease the agony of society over its own 
deadly wrong, and thus to postpone the day of heroic 
and final measures ; that Local Option is immoral, be- 
cause it assumes the right of the majority in a commu- 
nity to preserve or establish rum shops among them if they 
choose to do so ; that probably State Prohibition is a 
delusion because subject to the concentrated resistance 
of the liquor power of the whole nation, to the crippling 
effect of national control over interstate commerce, to 
the proximity of open saloons just over the border on 
four sides, to the passions and fluctuations of State poli- 



78 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGBESS. 

tics, and to the contempt of the average liquor seller for 
State laws and local officials ; that Prohibition for the 
whole country by act of Congress would be open to the 
fatal contingency of early repeal by a subsequent Con- 
gress, and hence that the only measure worth working 
for is National Prohibition for all the States by amend- 
ment to the Federal Constitution. How soon this group 
will again move u forward" and demand nothing short 
of Prohibition for the planet through a " federation of 
the world," coupled with an intimation that the next 
advance movement will embrace the solar system, no- 
body knows. 

My suggestion, then, is this : That there be formed at 
once an American Union Temperance Alliance under 
such name as shall be wisely chosen, with State and 
county branches as early as these can be progressively 
organized, and that membership in the Association be 
subject to no partisan or religious tests. Let the Alliance 
have for its central and permanent work the waging of 
a ceaseless warfare for the legal and actual suppression 
of the open saloon — that warfare to be pushed mainly 
along these three lines : 

First, the enforcement of such anti-liquor laws as we 
have. 

Second, the enactment of better laws, National, State 
and municipal, as rapidly as this can be accomplished. 

Third, the steady cultivation of a public sentiment 
which shall decree that the open saloon and Christian 
civilization cannot co-exist on the American continent. 

This is the barest outline of the objects and activities 
of such an organization. The details would adjust them- 
selves. 

Such an Alliance of anti- saloon workers would not be 
a political party. It would be something better. It 
would be a voice and a right arm of power within and 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. 79 

above all parties, prepared to uphold and reward fidelity 
to the noblest cause on earth, and able to crush any com- 
bination between partisan ambition and the powers that 
stand behind the Liquor Traffic. 

No suspicion of a rose-water policy should for an in- 
stant attach to such a movement. While catholic of 
spirit and tolerant of honest differences within reason- 
able lines, its hand of steel should not even be concealed 
by the velvet glove of conciliation toward a colossal 
wrong. The man who never shows his teeth except to 
smile is pretty sure to be devoured by the Philistines ; 
so with reform movements. 

I have purposely placed at the head of the column the 
work and duty of enforcing such anti-liquor laws as so- 
ciety has already enacted. 

Here is the central weakness of our cause to-day — the 
non-enforcement of the best laws we have been able to 
get. Here is the sufficient reason for recent reverses, for 
the apparent turning backward of the hand upon the 
dial. Without pretending to special knowledge of lo- 
calities, I venture the assertion that saloon suppression 
could be carried m Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and a 
dozen other States in 1890 but for the belief of hundreds 
of thousands of anti-saloon citizens that at present and 
to a great extent State Prohibition on paper would mean 
Free Rum on the street. 

The thing has been fully tested, and American com- 
munities are not going to permit anti-liquor legislation 
very much to outrun law enforcement, and this is right. 
If you and I, and those who at heart think with us, had 
for ten years past spent a tenth of the time, courage, and 
money in helping to enforce anti-liquor laws that we 
have spent in efforts to enact new and more drastic stat- 
utes, the Temperance element could to-day almost dictate 
the liquor legislation of the country. Imagine a general 



80 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

in charge of a great military campaign moving trium- 
phantly forward through the enemy's country, winning 
battles, capturing forts and entire armies, but systemat- 
ically turning loose his prisoners with arms in their 
hands, and abandoning the captured fortresses in his rear, 
with their armed and hostile garrisons. Let us not wince 
at this picture, for a first step toward that victory whose 
coming is as sure as the hills of God is an honest recog- 
nition of our blunders in the past. Law and Order 
Leagues have done much, but they would have done 
infinitely more if you and I had upheld their hands. Let 
the coming Alliance, then, be, among other things, a law- 
enforcement league. 

As to new and better laws, what principles shall gov- 
ern in forming them ? My answer would be, let new 
laws provide for saloon suppression where enforcement 
is practicable ; elsewhere apply saloon restriction. No 
union is possible, and none is likely to be proposed, 
based on the theory that the restriction or curtailment of 
an evil involves a sinful compromise with that evil. 

On the other hand, all will concede that there are pos- 
sible forms of restriction to which no good citizen could 
give assent. Then let the line of union include only 
such methods of restriction or repression as persons who 
are both reasonable and conscientious can approve. In 
Minnesota, I helped to secure the enactment of a high re- 
strictive tax, misleadingly named a High License law. 
It has closed and kept closed more than fifty per cent of 
the saloons in the State, and in my judgment has greatly 
diminished drinking ; but I would rather lose my right 
arm than accept taxation or License, high or low, as a final 
or ultimate policy. "What is more, I do not believe it is 
possible to secure a really strong union of Temperance 
forces on a plan of campaign which permanently in- 
cludes the License feature in any form. Rightly or 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. 81 

wrongly, reasonably or unreasonably, the term License, 
with the idea for which it stands, has fallen into hope- 
less disrepute with a great host of Temperance people of 
both sexes whose co-operation cannot be dispensed with. 
But the name and the thing can easily be dropped. 
There are dozens of tested and untested forms of saloon 
restriction which do not involve the License element, 
and the best of these can be adopted — some in one com- 
munity, others in others. 

Among the very best of these, permit me to mention 
in passing what is locally known as the Patrol Limit Sys- 
tem, which has been in force in my own town of Minne- 
apolis for five years past. In a word, its legal justifica- 
tion is the theory that, inasmuch as saloons are notorious 
centres of disorder, any municipality having a police 
system has a common-law right to say that no saloons 
shall exist except within such geographical limits as can 
be actively patrolled and thus protected by policemen. 
Accordingly our city council passed an ordinance which 
has since been sustained by the Supreme Court and em- 
bodied in the State law, drawing a dead line a few 
blocks back from the river on either side, and including 
a close section of the business centre. Inside this dead 
line the Liquor Traffic falls under whatever laws the State 
may have provided — in our case a tax of $1000 ; but out- 
side the narrow limit absolute Prohibition exists and is 
enforced over eleven twelfths of the area of our city of 
200,000 people. 

Among the obvious results of the Patrol Limit System 
are these : the saloons in the city are less in number by 
one half than they would otherwise be ; our churches, 
our schools, and the homes of our people are freed from 
the proximity and blight of these dens of vice ; the 
temptation to those workingmen who- drink at all to 
spend their earnings and their evenings at rum-shops is 



82 NATIONAL TExMPERAKCE CONGRESS. 

reduced to a minimum by simple distance. The force of 
inertia is thus enlisted on the side of Temperance. Drink- 
ing and drunkenness are thus largely reduced, and pub- 
lic sentiment is solidified about the new order of things. 

At the present stage of progress and of public opinion 
no Temperance movement, union or other, can in my 
judgment afford to dispense with the feature of Local 
Option by counties, in States where saloons are not sup- 
pressed by law. With all its drawbacks, it is capable of 
producing the best results, and, supplemented by the 
new spirit of law enforcement, it can work marvels of 
reform. At least three quarters of the territory of near- 
ly every State can be wholly freed and kept free from 
saloons under county option backed by that persistent 
courage which is indispensable to success under any 
system. 

Fixing a limit to the number of saloons in any given 
area, and prohibiting the maintenance of a drinking 
place in any precinct against the protest of a majority of 
householders or within a specified distance of any school 
or church, are among the minor measures of repression 
to which no reasonable friend of Temperance can object. 

I need not say that one first step in the way of na- 
tional legislation must be the enactment of a measure 
which lifts the heel of the Federal Government from the 
neck of the State in the matter of " original package" 
sales of liquor in violation of State statutes. And while 
this Temperance Congress is not to adopt resolutions, 
and while it is reasonably certain that Congress will 
hasten to complete the correction of this monstrous 
blunder, there ought to go from this gathering to 
Washington such an expression on this subject that he 
who runs (for office) may read. 

But this is only a passing episode. Our Union move- 
ment should have for a leading task the duty of seeing 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. 83 

to it that, as a matter of permanent policy, the National 
Government shall not hinder any effort of the State to 
deal with the Liquor Traffic as it deserves. 

Wherever the National Government has jurisdiction, 
it should be progressively urged to suppress the open 
sale of intoxicants ; but, with due respect to those who 
think differently, I believe a Union movement which 
should propose even to agitate for National Prohibition 
for the several States would be wrecked before it left 
the harbor. If there is one principle which goes down 
to the bottom of our American system of balanced gov- 
ernment, it is the principle that within their own boun- 
daries the several States, and not the nation, ought to 
exercise the police power. I believe that, after they 
understood the subject, not one-tenth of our people 
could, in a* hundred years, be converted to the opposite 
theory, with the tremendous revolution it would involve. 
If our reform is, in the slightest degree, to depend for 
its progress or ultimate triumph on the general accept- 
ance of the new doctrine of Federal control of liquor 
and police legislation within the States, then the road 
ahead of us is quite as long as even the National Brewers' 
Association could wish ! 

Finally, the field of education and agitation is with- 
out a limit. A few only of the lines of most importance 
can be mentioned in a paragraph : 

Woman's tremendous interest in and influence over 
this subject ought to be utilized to the utmost extent. 
And here let me say, that while I should be sorry to see 
woman burdened with the added responsibility of the 
ballot, if the time shall come when her vote will bring a 
success to the Temperance Reform, which cannot come 
without it, then to that extent at least I shall be an ad- 
vocate of Woman Suffrage. 

In all proper ways there should be hearty co-operation 



84 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

between any Union movement and the two great societies 
of temperance women already in the field. The educa- 
tional work now so widely useful in common schools 
ought to be pushed everywhere, and especially into our 
colleges and universities. 

The Sunday-school, the natural field for Temperance 
instruction, where it has not been wholly neglected has 
not been half cultivated. Agitation in favor of Total 
Abstinence as a rule of life, for the safety of self and as 
a help to others, should form a staple part of the Union 
work. Without this the attempt to suppress the saloon 
is an attempt to gather where we have not sown. 

Without regard to other differences, we can all co- 
operate in bracing up the American pulpit to a more 
virile and courageous attitude on this burning theme, 
including a prayerful consideration of the question 
whether other narcotics than alcohol, which sometimes 
invade the sacred study, are not, with the attending 
weight of high example, a part of that evil net which 
entraps our children's feet ! And of that other question, 
whether the Christianity and common sense of this, our 
day, are not equal to the task of banishing forever the 
cruel and bewildering paradox which makes alcohol 
salutary and sacred on the Communion Table, but poison- 
ous and sinful on the sideboard. 

Rev. A. J. Kynett, D.D., of Philadelphia, spoke as 
follows : 

u The line on which all enemies of the saloon may 
unitedly do battle" is a line of Battle. 

The topic before us is happily stated in military terms 
and implies variety of service and a place for all, ' ' whether 
they be believers in restrictive measures or in radical 
Prohibition." Veterans would tell us that we must first 
know the position of the enemy, the topography and 
general relations of the field of conflict. 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNONN. 85 

1. OUK ENEMY, THE SALOON, IS ENTRENCHED. First 

of all, in his original position behind the strong fortress 
of avarice and appetite. His line of communication with 
his base of supplies— the distillery and brewery — is 
amply protected ; besides, he has seized and now holds 
as outposts the caucus and the Central Committee, and 
puts our party politicians at work building earthworks 
and policing his camp, while all stragglers are con- 
scripted for all forms of menial service. 

2. Our forces are scattered. They are found in 
all political parties — not only the Prohibition Party, but 
in the Ke publican and Democratic, whose platforms em- 
phasize other and less important issues, and in all of 
which are prejudices more powerful than intelligent 
perception of living issues. They are in all religious 
sects, Catholic and Protestant, with their endless variety 
of doctrinal and ecclesiastical differences and social and 
religious ties holding them severally together. They are 
in all business relations and pursuits — manufacturing, 
mercantile, agricultural, mechanical — capitalists and 
wage-workers. Each has been subject to the laws of 
heredity, and all bring to the duties and responsibilities 
of mature years ancestral prejudices and forms of 
thought and feeling descending from past generations. 
They are as various as the leaves of the forest or the 
flowers of the field. All questions strike them at every 
possible angle, and the reflected light proceeds not upon 
straight lines, but is diffused more or less dimly or clearly 
through the surrounding atmosphere of popular senti- 
ment. Besides this, 

3. The enemy is not everywhere open to the same 
line of attack. In Maine, Kansas, and the two Dakotas, 
his position is commanded by the heavy siege-guns of 
Constitutional Prohibition. Recently, under orders, the 
Central Committee has sent out skirmishers to feel this 



86 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

position* The result has not been encouraging. From 
the platform of this National Congress I proclaim that 
these guns will never be dismounted or spiked ! The 
fire of those batteries has utterly demolished the sources 
of supply— the distilleries and breweries in all these 
States. Not one is left, nor is there an open saloon. 
A few demoralized and tattered soldiers may be dimly 
seen creeping through underground passages and dark 
places supposed to be out of range, but an occa- 
sional shell makes sad havoc in these. To maintain suc- 
cessful warfare in these States is a comparatively easy 
task, and yet eternal vigilance is indispensable. 

In Iowa the siege-gun of Constitutional Prohibition 
was declared by the Supreme Court of the State not to 
have been cast quite right, and so it has been silent ; 
but the heavy artillery of Statutory Prohibition has ren- 
dered almost equally effective service. The stale state- 
ment that Prohibition does not prohibit, has been re- 
peated on this platform, and the example of Davenport 
and Dubuque, with a few other Iowa towns, has been 
cited as proof. No word of mine shall be construed as 
implying personal unkindness toward any ; but why did 
not our friend point to the eighty-four counties of Iowa 
out of the total number — ninety-nine — where not a distil- 
lery or brewery or open saloon can be found ? The ex- 
ceptions referred to — Davenport and other places — are 
exceptions because the local authorities, with a large 
alien and un-American population behind them, are op- 
posed to Prohibition. If we were seeking to know the 
value of street- car service in any city, I should insist 
upon it that we should take a city where the service is 
normal, and not a city where a mob has seized the cars 
and refuses to allow them to run. 

In Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and other High Li- 
cense States the situation is very different, and rather 



WEDNESDAY AETERNOOK. 87 

mixed. The principal saloons are licensed and under pro- 
tection of the flag, and unlawful places nestle under 
their shadow. How to form a line of battle against 
them is a difficult problem. How to train our guns upon 
licensed saloons is not yet apparent. If we should make 
an assault, we should certainly be repelled — if not by the 
saloon power, by the strong arm of the State pledged to 
their protection. Something, however, may be accom- 
plished through Law and Order societies by a sort of 
bush-whacking campaign against the " speak-easies" and 
other violators of law. 

In Local Option States the situation again differs. 
Prohibition counties have in some measure the advan- 
tages of Prohibition States, with the difference that al- 
ways exists between a large fortress beyond the enemy's 
guns, and small ones scattered over the field of battle. 

To form one line of battle under such conditions is a 
difficult problem, and yet we must accept the situation 
as it is and wage war as best we can. We dare not — we 
must not — surrender the field to this great and terrible 
enemy. 

My suggestions are so like those of General Nettleton 
that we might be supposed to have conferred together. 
I accept every suggestion made upon this platform. Let 
us use personal influence, but constantly toward a definite 
end. Let us cultivate public opinion, but up toward 
some definite standard. Let us substitute coffee-houses, 
but close the saloon. Let us improve the homes of the 
people, but destroy this arch-enemy of their homes. Let 
us educate the children, but protect them while we 
educate. I am prepared for the suggestion of Dr. Funk 
— repeal the permissive features of all License laws and 
multiply their restrictive features. Let the State dis- 
solve partnership with the saloon, and refuse all revenues 
from the traffic. For my part, I commend the Penn- 



88 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

sylvania experiment. During and following our cam- 
paign for Constitutional Prohibition we organized " The 
Union Prohibitory League of Pennsylvania.' ' In a 
short time, with scarcely any public effort, we secured 
the enrolment of some 80,000 voters. About two thirds 
of the number were and still are Republicans ; the re- 
maining third, pretty equally divided between Demo- 
crats and party Prohibitionists. We declared, " Our 
object is the suppression of the saloon. In order to do 
this we unite to secure : 

" 1. The strict enforcement of the prohibitory meas- 
ures of existing laws relating to the Liquor Traffic." 
Can we not all accept this ? 

" 2. The early enactment of more stringent and pro- 
hibitory statutes, with adequate penalties." Are we not 
ready for this also ? 

" 3. The final adoption of Constitutional Prohibition 
for the State and Nation." Some may falter here, but 
will come to it by and by. 

" "We solemnly declare : 

11 1. That we owe primary allegiance to God and hu- 
manity, to our country and commonwealth, and will hold 
all party affiliations subordinate to these higher claims. 

" 2. That, retaining our personal liberty to choose our 
political associations as to us shall seem best, we pro- 
claim that we are and will forever be free from the do- 
minion of the liquor power, and demand that all political 
connection between the saloon and the State, through 
whatever political party, shall be forever totally dis- 
solved. 

We invited (and still invite) "our fellow-citizens of 
all parties and creeds to unite with us in this declaration, 
and for the end sought — the suppression of the saloon — 
to form such organizations in their respective States, 
counties, cities, wards, townships, and fraternal associa- 



- , WEDNESDAY AFTER^OOK. 89 

tions as they shall deem wise, with a view to delegated 
conventions to perfect strong and permanent organiza- 
tions throughout the nation that shall continue until 
this great end shall be accomplished. ' ' 

I propose this Pennsylvania plan as " The Line on 
which all Enemies of the Saloon may Unitedly do Battle, 
whether they be Believers in Restrictive Measures or in 
Radical Prohibition," and if any cannot occupy the 
central position on the line, let them occupy and hold 
such as they can. 

So I am prepared to accept the suggestion of my friend 
Dr. Funk, and cut loose from all revenues from this 
traffic, and, if we cannot j>rohlbit absolutely and uni- 
versally, go as far as we can on that line, holding the 
goal in view, and get to it as quickly as possible. 

Rev. N. B. Randall, D.D., of Long Island City, said : 

Mr, President, Ladies and Gentlemen : I stand here to- 
day as a worker for Prohibition. I have been nearly 
through with the contest in Pennsylvania, which has 
terminated so disastrously for Constitutional Prohibition ; 
and I believe that the ultimate end and aim of every 
opponent of the saloon ought to be along that line. But 
it is only necessary for us, sir, to face facts, and not 
fancies. The status of this audience to-day, of Tem- 
perance men and women picked from all this country, 
if we were to go no further than these walls, testifies. to 
me that we are not ready yet for Prohibition, either 
by statute or by constitutional amendment, either in 
the States or in the Nation. Bat we want to go as far 
and as fast as we can. I believe that to be the end in 
view. And yet, in order that I might be exact, I have 
written a thought or two which I wish to present to you 
to-day. And I am glad, for my sake, that it is written, 
lest you should think that I had copied after what Dr. 
Funk has said ; for we are thinking along the same line. 



90 STATIOXAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESSo 

Temperance advocates have been fighting one another 
for years. Our line of battle has been too extended. 
The right wing of political Prohibition has fired into 
the centre of High License, and the centre has returned 
the fire. Then both have trained their guns against the 
left wing of Moral Suasion, and nearly swept it from the 
field. Our foes, wiser than w^e, waste no ammunition on 
each other. It is time for us to re-form our line of bat- 
tle. Very modestly (as becomes one who has been on 
the field long enough to recognize the difficulties of the 
situation) I venture to drop a seed-thought or two in the 
friendly soil around me. 

1. Can we not agree in demanding the abolition of the 
License system ? (a) That system is wrong per se. Let 
us wash our hands of it. (b) It protects our foe, the 
Liquor Traffic, with the shield of legality. It teaches 
the people that rum-selling is a reputable business, con- 
ducted by men whose " respectable character" has been 
endorsed by influential petitioners and affirmed by the 
court. The larger the number of endorsers required, 
the stronger it makes the endorsement of the man's re- 
spectability, (c) The License system is a hindrance to 
Prohibition. It appeals to the avarice of the people, 
like the Louisiana Lottery Company, in offering to hear 
their burdens of taxation ; and the higher the License, 
the greater is the bribe and the greater the peril. Let 
us unite for the repeal of all License laws. What then ? 
Shall the country have " free whiskey"? No ; but re- 
member, as was once said about slavery, that 

44 Sin, for want of legislation, 
Is not quite like sin by law." 

Let us first cease to " sin by law." Then let us 
have : 

2. Restrictive Legislation, Don't let us say when and 
how men can sell liquor. Let us ask our laws to say 



WEDNESDAY AFTERtfOOK. 91 

when and how they cannot sell it. The law should (a) 
prohibit the sale of all adulterated liquors, and provide 
for a vigilant governmental inspection, with the destruc- 
tion of all that is found to be impure. This alone would 
revolutionize the business and prevent two thirds of the 
crimes and physical ruin now caused by the traffic, (o) 
The law should prohibit all sales to habitual drunkards, 
to minors and to others needing special protection, as 
well as on Sundays, election days, legal holidays, and 
between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. of every day, and in the sa- 
loon at any time, (c) The law should punish the vio- 
lator of these provisions by a fine on the first conviction, 
by imprisonment in the county jail on the second, and 
by imprisonment in the State's prison on every subse- 
quent conviction. I believe that all friends of Temper- 
ance — yes, all who love their fellow-men — could unite 
along these lines ; that such legislation might be enacted 
and could be enforced everywhere, and that it would 
educate public opinion along the line of still greater Re- 
striction up to the final overthrow of the entire Liquor 
Traffic. 

Rev. Henry B. Hudson, of 2Tew York, said : 
Mr. President j Ladies and Gentlemen : In considering 
" methods of work upon which all may agree," etc., it 
seems to me that the object for working at all must be 
clearly understood as a first essential to the intelligent 
choice of any " method." To this end permit me to 
offer a pertinent correction. All the speakers, from our 
worthy President on, have constantly urged the shibbo- 
leth, M the saloon must go ;'* and already this has led to 
needless error and difference of opinion in the Congress 
during the discussion of " methods." In illustration of 
this, General Dow and Dr. Kynett have both made the 
unchallenged statement that one result of Prohibition as 
a u method " has been the complete deliverance of Maine, 



92 HATIOKAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

Kansas, and the two Dakotas from the shame of being 
manufacturing centres and producers of the nefarious 
beverages. Their distilleries and breweries are gone, 
and their places are taken by legitimate and beneficent 
industries. Yet with the tune struck on the key "the 
saloon must go, ' ' this fact, unapproached by the results 
of any other method ever tried, almost fails to place Pro- 
hibition on an equality with High License, even regard- 
ing each only as a method of restriction. And this in 
face of the well-known fact that in this city many hun- 
dreds of '* saloons" have been foisted upon the commu- 
nity by the brewers fitting up the place on mortgages 
just to make a market for their beer. 

No, friends, the objective point of intelligent Temper- 
ance forces is not the destruction of the saloon. The 
" saloon" is only one incident of many in the whole 
evil. Destroy it absolutely to-day, and the Liquor 
Traffic will be with us still. Hotels, restaurants, drug- 
shops, club-houses, and the rum grocery would afford 
ample opportunity for marketing the product of the un- 
checked distilleries and breweries. Our purpose is the 

DESTRUCTION OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC, ROOT AND BRANCH, 

and we strike equally at the root, which is the manufac- 
ture, and the branch, which is the market, whether it be 
the rum grocery, club-house or saloon. Down with the 
Liquor Traffic ! This being our object, it is self-evident 
that Prohibition, which destroys all the manufactories 
and abolishes ten saloons where the highest License dis- 
turbs one, must be given the first place among the 
u methods^' upon which all may unite for the complete 
destruction of the Liquor Traffic. One other point, Mr. 
President : in considering the relative merits of License 
and Prohibition as methods upon which we may unite, 
let it not be forgotten, whenever the discussion shifts to 
the ground of. law enforcement,, that the argument is in 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. 93 

favor of Prohibition as five to one. Every restrictive 
measure by License first permits and then proceeds with 
five or more prohibitive clauses, such as, no sale on 
Sunday, nor between 1 and 5 a.m., nor to drunkards, to 
minors, on election days, etc., the enforcement of any one 
of which requires the same machinery of constabulary and 
justice as is required to enforce one statute of complete 
Prohibition. And it is to be observed when considering 
the influence of the two methods in engendering con- 
tempt for law, with the consequent resort to subterfuges 
for its avoidance, the argument for Prohibition still holds 
in the same ratio ; for every License system yet devised 
presents the spectacle of not less than five minor prohib- 
itive features, all of which are openly and shamelessly 
violated, while each is the constant incentive for resort- 
ing to cunning and wicked devices to bring the entire 
restrictive phases into general contempt. Therefore, 
every word of argument urged against the feasibility of 
Prohibition, based upon the non-enforcement of law, lies 
with equal or greater force against the License system ; 
for of the two, License laws are more generally and 
openly violated in their every restrictive clause than is 
Prohibition. In conclusion, Mr. President, it is emi- 
nently clear to most minds not burdened with some fa- 
vorite theory that all wise efforts to unite should be di- 
rected toward uniting upon that " method of work" 
which in its weakest estate includes the outlawry of the 
traffic, and even when imperfectly enforced is the most 
effective restrictive measure yet devised ; and which, 
when honestly enforced, works the practical abolition of 
the entire business. That ' • method' ' is everywhere 
known by the one name of prohibition. 

Mr. John T. Tanner, of Alabama, spoke as follows : 
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : I am not here 
for the purpose of making a speech. For the first time 



94 ^ATIOIsTAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

in my life I have heard High License advocated to-day, 
and also the saloon side of the question. I have been 
engaged in this business now for the last eight or ten 
years, and I have never heard a gentleman until to-day 
rise in open congress or convention and advocate, as I 
consider, the whiskey side of this question. I say it re- 
spectfully to the gentlemen. I live in the little village 
of Athens, Ala. We have carried Prohibition there 
five times out of seven consecutive elections. Each time 
I had the honor of being the successful candidate, and I 
carried the question five times out of seven. I want to 
say to this audience that we have tried, in Alabama, 
High License and Low License. "We have tried every- 
thing in Alabama, and we find that High License whis- 
key will make a man drunk just as quick as Low License 
whiskey ; and in the city of Montgomery, a few months 
ago, after testing all these various remedies, we in con- 
vention there resolved that nothing short of absolute 
National Prohibition would do for Alabama. I had the 
honor, just a few weeks ago, of being at a State con- 
vention in Texas. I met the Hon. John P. St. John 
there and afterward at Fort Worth, and at Dallas. I 
have Governor St. John's word for it (and I believe 
every word he says) that in the State of Kansas there is 
not an open saloon nor a distillery. I travelled through 
Kansas some few years ago myself, and I didn't see a 
drunken man nor an open saloon in that State, and I 
know that Prohibition does prohibit. In Athens, as I 
said just now, we tried High and Low License. We 
had one saloon at $250, and we declared we would 
tax it out of existence. We put the license up to $1000, 
and two men took out licenses. We then concluded it 
would not do to rely upon License of any kind, and we 
have resolved from this day forward to know nothing 
but Prohibition — National Prohibition. 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. 05 

Major Marshall B. Bright, editor of the Christian at 
Work, New York, said : 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : I did not expect 
to say a single word to you to-day, because I did not 
know that I could say that which would be in harmony 
with the feeling and sentiments of the people here as- 
sembled. There has been a great deal said here to-day 
about putting the saloon down, about the evils of 
drink, and of the methods we should use for remedying 
it all. I confess, sir, I should like to see something in 
the way of putting the saloon down. I have had my 
Republican friends come to me and talk about putting 
the saloon down. I have had Democrats, who voted the 
straight Democratic ticket ever since they were twenty- 
one years of age, come to me with the same thing. And 
a little observation gives me the impression that the 
difference between the politicians in the two parties is 
that one says to the saloon-keeper, standing at the 
front door, " You are my friend,' ' and the other one 
passes him by, like the Levite, and does not say a 
word, but goes around and takes his hand at the rear 
door. 

Now we are never going to get along while we trust to 
the politicians or the political newspapers. They have 
capitals and italics for all the sentiments in the country, 
and for all the moralities, and for all the decalogues 
that could be invented. And what good do they 
do? 

Now, sir, I should like to see the saloon put down. 
And it seems to me, without assuming to be at all wiser 
than anybody else, that we do not observe a distinction 
which ought to be made. What do we find ? As has 
been told here to-day, as Dr. Huntington told us, we 
have a united enemy, and we have a divided army in 
front of it. The circumstances ought to be reversed. 



96 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

There should be a united Temperance army, and we 
should have penetrated between the wings of the Liquor 
army. How can we do that ? We speak about saloons, 
but we speak without discriminating. We don't dis- 
criminate between the ale and the beer, with their three to 
five per cent, of alcohol, and the light wines, with their 
fifteen, and the four distilled liquors, with their fifty per 
cent, of alcohol. Why don't we do it ? Oughtn't we to 
use our heads a little more, and do a little more think- 
ing along that line ? It seems to me we should, sir. 
Now, sir, there is not a man here that is not opposed to 
the drinking of the four distilled liquors as a beverage. 
Could not this assembly, could not the people of this 
State, could not the people of the whole country, unite 
in one effort and say, not, " We will have these saloons 
open free, and not have any License or Restriction," 
but, " We won't have a single saloon at all" ? 

And then we come to one other point. As has been 
said by one of the speakers, if you take this away, you 
must have something in its place. Now the trouble is 
not in the matter of the drinking. The trouble is not 
that you drink. But the trouble is the appetite that is 
behind it ; and where the appetite is for the distilled 
liquors, it leads to crime, to our jails and prisons and 
penitentiaries. Why not draw the differentiating line 
right here ? Why not make your first aggressive move- 
ment against the sale of the four distilled liquors at all ? 
In Germany and in some of the other countries where 
they drink their light wines and light beers, there is far 
less intemperance and far less crime than where the four 
distilled liquors are drunk. 

Now, Mr. President, I am not making a plea for ale, 
wine, beer, or anything of the kind. I think those things 
make their own plea, and don't need me to speak for 
them. But I do believe this : if we would concentrate 



WEDNESDAY AFTEKNOOK. 97 

our efforts upon the suppression of the four distilled 
liquors, and suppress those first, we should pierce the 
enemy. We should separate the German beer-drinkers 
from the distilled-liquor-drinkers, and we should have 
an aggressive army to move on to the front. Now, sir, 
it has been my pleasure often to find myself in a minor- 
ity. I find myself in a minority to-day ; but I am glad 
that the minority is surrounded by such a majority as 
it is. 

Rev. William Fielder, of South Dakota, said : 
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : We of South 
Dakota, we of the wild and woolly West, we of the 
progressive West, if you please, believe in Prohibition. 
For a few years we tried Restriction by License. It was 
a failure. It was a total failure. For two years we 
tried Local Option. It was unsatisfactory to our people. 
And then we resolved, in the name of God and in the 
name of the wives and children of the drunkards of the 
States, that we would have Prohibition. 

We went in for Prohibition. We obtained Prohibi- 
tion. And let me say just one word here to-day in favor 
of the Republican Party. Credit to whom credit is due. 
As the representative of the third party Prohibitionists, 
I said to our friends last summer, " We must get the 
Republican Party to put Prohibition into their platform 
this ML" They said, " They will never do it." I 
said, "They will do it." We went to the Republican 
Convention, we demanded it, and we got it. Gentle- 
men, ask for what you want, and you will get it. But 
you must ask in such a way that they will realize that 
you mean what you say. We have State Prohibition. 
On the first day of May, 1889, there was not an open saloon 
in South Dakota — not one. There was not one on the 
second day, nor on the third, nor on the fourth, nor on the 
fifth, nor on the tenth. But we have a few " original 



98 KATIOKAL TEMPERAKCE CONGRESS. 

package' ' houses now. But we expect to dispose of 
them. One of our Congressmen received a thousand 
petitions from our district, asking for relief from that 
source. It is coming. Already, as you know, the Sen- 
ate has taken favorable action. The House of Repre- 
sentatives must do it. Not only does Dakota demand it, 
not only do Iowa and Kansas and North Dakota and 
Maine demand it, but your License States demand it. 
They have got to do it. It is coming. 

One minute more. We have Prohibition. We expect 
to keep it. We have a State Enforcement League, of 
which I have the honor to be the president. Every one 
of our State officers has identified himself with it. A 
great many of our mayors and county attorneys and 
county judges and others have identified themselves 
with it. We are putting our moral influence behind this 
law. We are putting our personal force behind it. We 
are putting our money behind it. And, in the name of 
God, Prohibition shall prohibit in South Dakota. 
(Cheers for South Dakota.) 

Mrs. M. J. Washington said : 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: I am almost 
paralyzed, and yet God seems to call me to say some- 
thing. There are only two points to which I wish to 
call your attention. This gentleman from Long Island 
is in the line of my thought — that is, what right has a 
State to license any institution that is antagonistic to the 
very life and body and soul of its citizens ? If I am 
wrong on any legal questions, the gentleman will set me 
right. The moment that a child draws its first breath, 
it becomes a citizen of the State, does it not ? Then 
the State owes that child protection, does it not ? Does 
it not owe it protection in every sense ? Then what 
right, I say, in the name of the mothers, the grand- 
mothers, of this glorious Republic — what right has a 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. 99 

State, then, to license an institution which degrades the 
morality not only of its men, but its women ? Because 
we must not shut our eyes to the fact that intemperance 
is going into every social rank, and we must do away 
with the sin of it. We must not have any License. 
The State owes it to its citizens to protect them, 
does it not ? Then we must throw around them protec- 
tion. 

It seems to be my special mission, and I am glad to say 
here on this platform that I will nurse free of charge any 
inebriate that any friend in this audience has. I will 
invade his house, as I did recently at two o'clock in the 
morning, and gave back to New York one of its first 
citizens. He had been on a spree for three months ; and 
on the fourth day after I entered his house he went to 
his business, and he has been there ever since. For 
twenty-seven years his family had begged him to take 
the pledge. I never said a word to him about it. 

Then there is another point. Of course, women get all 
off, you know. They can't talk like men. If this State 
owes protection to its citizens, it has no right, legal, 
moral, social, or religions, to license any place that will 
sell liquor. On the other hand, if people must have 
liquor and must have stimulants, if they feel the necessity 
of it, let us do as they do in Germany and in France : if 
we must have beer, don't have it adulterated with glu- 
cose and all sorts of things, but give it to the men in a 
pure state. I was born, I might say, with mint juleps 
to drink, and in my youth I couldn't get along without 
six or seven different kinds of wine. But I quit it all. 
If they will sell liquor such as the Western cowboys 
call tarantula- juice, and such as my slave-hunters in 
Virginia called coffin-varnish, then let it be labelled, 
like oleomargarine, so that people will know what 
it is. 



100 KATIOXAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

The next subject was : 

The Systematic Prosecution of the Total Ab- 
stinence Work Essential to the Overthrow of 
the Liquor Power. 

The first paper upon this subject was by Hon. Albert 
Griffin, of Kansas, and was read by Colonel Alexander 
S. Bacon. It was as follows : 

If there were no dram-drinkers there could be no sa- 
loons ; therefore dram-drinkers are responsible for all 
the evil done by saloons— and more. Every man and 
woman who uses intoxicating liquor of any kind as a 
beverage, no matter where or in what amount, is a 
dram-drinker, and shares this responsibility. Every 
purchase is a direct contribution to the treasury of the 
liquor power ; every known indulgence strengthens the 
sentiment that sustains and spreads the habit, and its 
potency for evil is greatest when the example is set by 
those who move in the higher circles of society and are 
able to exercise self-control. The drink habit is a foun- 
tain of woes for which saloons are reservoirs and con- 
duits. Destroying reservoirs may deflect or diminish 
without stopping the stream, but dry up the fountain, 
and reservoirs and distributing pipes become useless, 
and dams and dikes unnecessary. No mere legislative 
enactment ever did and no conceivable one ever can end 
intemperance ; but the universal abandonment of the 
drink habit would do so. It is, of course, Utopian to 
expect all men to voluntarily deny themselves, but each 
and every individual who becomes a Total Abstainer un- 
questionably strengthens the Temperance cause and 
weakens the liquor power. 

There are two methods of fighting the drink evil. 
The first appeals to individuals to voluntarily stop drink- 
ing. The second asks the State to make it difficult for 



WEDNESDAY AETEKNOOtf. 101 

them to gratify their appetites, and to forbid others to 
tempt them. Both systems are good ; but as the first 
always has to precede the second, it is the most essential 
in point of time, and has always been the most effective as 
to cure. During the early years of the Temperance 
agitation and the period of the Woman's Crusade and 
the Ribbon movements, the first of these methods was re- 
lied upon almost entirely, and the cause made wonderful 
and continuous progress. The number of drinkers rapidly 
diminished and the sentiment in favor of Prohibition 
spread with almost equal rapidity, although comparative- 
ly little special effort was made in its behalf. But 
during the eight years that the second method has been 
prosecuted with increasing exclusiveness, the number of 
drinkers and the consumption of liquor has increased at 
an alarming rate, the saloon has grown richer and 
stronger, and Prohibition has been overwhelmingly de- 
feated in eight States, repealed in one, and barely escaped 
in another. Furthermore, coincident with this change 
of tactics, the opponents of the saloon have spent more 
time, energy, and money fighting each other than has 
been used against the common enemy ; and this fratri- 
cidal strife goes on with ever-increasing bitterness and 
injury to the cause of suffering humanity. 

The record of the past proves conclusively that the 
first method has never done any harm, and has always 
done good. Indeed, it is difficult to see how it could be 
otherwise. It is true that it has not been as successful 
as some sanguine people hoped ; but intelligent, persis- 
tent effort on that line cannot fail to strengthen the 
cause. While it was pursued, the Temperance forces 
were united and grew daily stronger and more aggres- 
sive, the opposing cohorts being correspondingly weak- 
ened and demoralized. Experience indicates that that 
method not only diminishes drinking, but makes more 



102 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

Prohibitionists than have been or can be secured by di- 
rect attacks upon the traffic unaided by it. On the other 
hand, efforts on legal and political lines always tend to 
divert attention from personal Temperance, and have 
been less effective on their own lines in proportion as 
they have had that effect. It is easy to say that this 
ought not to be so, but the fact remains that it actually 
is so. In short, persistent and intelligent effort on Total 
Abstinence lines always has and always will increase 
the number of Temperance men and Prohibitionists also, 
while a concentration of effort on legal lines always has 
had exactly the opposite effect. What then ? Shall 
Prohibition be abandoned ? By no means. It is needed 
to clinch the nails driven by the Moral Suasion hammer, 
and to keep the devils from returning into the men out 
of whom they have been driven. We must have both 
Moral Suasion and Legal Suasion, but the best, if not the 
only way to secure both is to make our main fight di- 
rectly against the drink habit The American tendency 
to appeal to the law as a cure-all needs to be checked 
rather than stimulated. 

It must also be remembered that progress is impossible 
on legal lines until a majority agree, while on personal 
lines single individuals can work successfully. Political 
victories are possible only on election days, but personal 
victories may be won every day in every year. Legisla- 
tive victories are often barren because of unforeseen 
obstacles or shifted defences, but personal victories can- 
not be thus nullified. Again, political victories may be 
turned into defeats by mistakes, incapacity or treason, 
but the Total Abstainer's feet are on a rock. 

Let us look the facts squarely in the face. About one 
half of the people of the North are of foreign birth or 
parentage, and nearly nine million Southerners are Ne- 
groes. Taking whites and blacks, natives and foreigners 



WEDNESDAY AFTERKOOtf. 103 

all into account, it is probable that three-fourths of the 
men and one half of the women in the United States 
drink occasionally — or oftener — and of the annual half 
million addition to our foreign population, and the mill- 
ion and a half of boys and girls who become men and 
women each year, only a small portion are abstainers, so 
that the situation grows worse instead of better — and at 
a rapid rate. 

In view of such facts, is it not folly— or worse — to rely 
exclusively, or even mainly, upon a plan that is so pro- 
fuse in promises and so parsimonious in performance ? 
Is it not an imperative duty to revive and improve the 
plan of work that has never failed to do a part of what 
it promised, and has sometimes done more ? Most men 
will say yes to this question, but it is so much easier and 
pleasanter to denounce dram-sellers and shift the more 
dlsagreaeble duties on to official shoulders than to per- 
suade men to make personal sacrifices, that nearly all 
choose the congenial task for themselves, leaving the 
more important but distasteful one to — somebody — any- 
body — no matter who. It is therefore evident that this 
absolutely essential work will not be done unless it is 
taken up by those whose zeal for the cause is genuine 
enough to imbue them with the spirit of self-sacrifice. 

But a mere return to Moral Suasion methods will not 
suffice. The greater part of the time and money hereto- 
fore devoted to Temperance work has been wasted. To 
illustrate : I once heard a good man, as he dropped ex- 
haustedly into a chair, inform a committee that he had 
been u laboring hard all day for the cause," and inquiry 
developed the fact that his time had been spent " labor- 
ing" with eighteen Temperance men, two incorrigible 
dram-sellers, and one drinker. Tens of thousands of 
public meetings have been held with none but Temper- 
ance people in attendance, and, consequently, no visible 



104 KATIOtfAL TEMPERAKCE CONGRESS. 

results. It will not do to merely offer pledges at meet- 
ings which drinking men and women carefully avoid. 
In some way it must be ascertained who these drinkers 
are, and, when they decline to come to us, we must go to 
them. Furthermore, and equally important, we should 
be careful not to repel them by demanding greater sacri- 
fices than are needed. 

It is not possible to ascertain who are for or against a 
reform by guessing. Millions of men and women sup- 
posed by their Temperance friends to be Total Abstain- 
ers are, in fact, tipplers. The best if not the only way 
to properly prepare for the needed work is to divide 
cities, towns, and counties into small districts, and have 
lists made for each containing the names of every resi- 
dent over ten years old (just as the politician does with 
the voters of each precinct). Then, proclaiming that 
the purpose is to make each district as nearly as possible 
" solid for Total Abstinence, " circulate pledges and check 
every signer. Many names can be procured at public 
meetings, but the greater number will probably have to 
be obtained by personal solicitation. Separate lists 
should also be obtained of the members of all churches, 
lodges, and other societies, labor unions and employees in 
large establishments, and especial efforts put forth to 
make each body " solid for Total Abstinence.' ' While 
some workers would take selected names for personal 
visitation, others should go systematically from house to 
house and shop to shop. Of course, the names of those 
who are already in favor of Temperance and those who 
can be most easily influenced would soon be secured, 
and, as the movement progressed, many who refused 
at first would decide to ''help make it unanimous ;" 
for when public sentiment in favor of great humanita- 
rian movements becomes aroused and organized, its 
power to persuade, convince, and awe is tremendous. As 



WEDNESDAY AFTERKOOST. 105 

the good work went on and its results became manifest, 
the really human souls that would not be melted by the 
fervent heat of enkindled humanity would be rare indeed. 

At all times the " Phalanx' ' idea — shoulder to shoul- 
der, in hollow squares, about the Nation's homes, with 
every weapon levelled at their defiling and destroying foe 
— should be kept in mind, and the " Phalanxes" should 
be composed of " Temperance Volunteers. ' ' To suc- 
ceed, this holy work must commence in and draw its 
chief support from the Church, which, to that end, must 
first purge itself. Few ministers have even a faint con- 
ception of the number of tipplers now on their rolls, and 
as the world cannot be lifted to a higher plane than the 
Church prepares, the saloon will continue to flourish until 
the wine-cellars under the Church of God are closed, 
and the odor of alcohol is banished from its sanctuary. 

It is admitted that the suggested plan would require 
a great deal of work ; but can the desired results be se- 
cured with less ? And are they not well worth what 
they would cost ? Do we really desire the redemption 
of the nation ? If so, our plans must be as broad as the 
evil that we seek to suppress ; and, after all, each set of 
workers will only have to cultivate their own small field. 
The most difficult part of the whole business is to make 
the start. 

I come now to another point of very great importance. 
It seems to me unwise to repel those whose help is need- 
ed by requiring them to make unnecessary sacrifices. 
Millions of men and women, who drink more or less, 
cannot be convinced that such indulgence does them any 
harm ; but, knowing that drinking ruins multitudes of 
others, they would be willing to deny themselves if they 
believed such self-denial would become general. They, 
however, have so little faith that dram-drinking can be 
made unpopular, that they will not sign a life pledge. 



106 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGEESS. 

This class of people is very numerous among those whose 
influence is most potent for good or harm, and the ques- 
tion, How can their support be secured for an onward 
movement ? is one of such great importance as to merit 
careful consideration. Long reflection has convinced me 
that the power for good of the approaching Temperance 
revival (and it is near at hand) will be immensely in- 
creased by presenting two pledges something like the 
following, with no special effort made in favor of one 
as against the other : 



.Phalanx Temperance Volunteers. 



LIFE PLEDGE 



Believing that the "best interests of the Nation and of 
humanity will he promoted thereby, I hereby pledge 
myself, God helping me, never to use intoxicating liquor 
of any Tcind as a beverage. 

Signature, 

Residence, 



.......Phalanx Temperance Volunteers. 



FIVE YEARS' PLEDGE. 



Believing that the best interests of the Nation and of 
humanity will be promoted thereby, I hereby pledge my- 
self, God helping me, not to use intoxicating liquor of 

any Mnd as a beverage for five years from , 

1890. ) 

Signature, 



Residence, 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. 107 

Can there be any doubt that the presentation of such 
alternative pledges to every individual in every commu- 
nity, again and again and again, with urgent entreaties 
to at least enlist for a five years' campaign against the 
drink habit, would secure the support of an immense 
number of individuals who cannot be induced to at once 
tie their hands and close their mouths forever ? Is there 
a State in the Nation in which the liquor power could 
maintain itself for five years against assaults conducted 
in the manner herein suggested, and backed by " organ- 
ized public opinion" in every nook and corner and back 
alley ? No, not one ! Five years is really a long time — 
the great rebellion was crushed in four. It is long 
enough to create an irresistible sentiment, crystallize it 
into law, and bring down the heavy hand of Government 
upon the few who would still be willing to fight with 
and for the worm of the still. Then, why should we 
prolong the struggle by insisting on more than is neces- 
sary ? 

Last year Prohibition was decisively defeated in New 
Hampshire, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, 
and Connecticut, not because their citizens approve of 
and desire the continuance of the saloon system, but be- 
cause they do not believe it can be suppressed while so 
large a proportion of the people are unwilling to volun- 
tarily abandon the drink habit. When the campaigns 
were being organized in those States, their managers 
were urged to inaugurate a pledge-signing movement as 
an auxiliary, but they did not deem it wise. Possibly 
the amendments would have been defeated even if they 
had decided differently ; but it will hardly now be ques- 
tioned that if they had done so the defeats would not 
have been so decisive, and the Temperance sentiment 
would have been greatly and permanently strength- 
ened. 



108 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

New York is to vote upon a Prohibitory Amendment 
next April ; will it not be wise to test the efficiency of 
the proposed plan in that campaign ? Can a crushing' 
defeat be avoided in any other way ? The odds in favor 
of the liquor power are immense, and it is possible that 
an absolute victory cannot be won in so short a time ; 
but on the lines herein proposed a Temperance con- 
stituency can be organized that will neither ground arms 
nor cease its assaults until the last saloon shall have been 
closed. 

Mrs. Lucinda B. Chandler, of Chicago, spoke as fol- 
lows : 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : I represent the 
Non-Partisan Women's Christian Temperance Alliance 
of the State of Illinois. The sentiments of my paper, for 
the most part, will certainly represent the women of Illi- 
nois of that Alliance. There may be one or two points 
in which they will not agree with me. Our aim is 
Educational Prohibition based on the following prop- 
ositions : 

The Temperance problem is a problem of human ad- 
vancement. 

The sentiment against drunkenness, which is well-nigh 
universal, cannot touch it. 

Temperance is a positive and spiritual principle. 

It belongs to both eating and drinking. To keep the 
physical organism and the brain in the purest condition 
for the service of reason, will, and moral sense is the 
duty of the higher self. 

The saloon is an effect. To remove the saloon, the 
cause of its existence must be removed. 

This cause is the ungoverned and misdirected desires 
of the lower nature, and the uncultivated taste and 
untrained power of the moral nature of man. 

The saloon does not make men weak and ungovernable 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. 109 

in appetite. The weakness and unregulated appetite, 
the uncultured habits and defects of man, create the sa- 
loon and maintain it. 

The less of politics and the more of education, scientific, 
moral, and religious, the greater will be the advancement 
of Temperance. 

We want to abolish the saloon. 

We must abolish the demand for the saloon. 

The law of demand and supply exists in the nature of 
things. 

Neither sentiment nor force can reverse or overpower 
the action of this law. 

The sentiment and force that can tend to this must be 
in the individual, where it can change the demand from 
that of lower desire to higher purpose. 

What can most effectively operate to abolish the demand 
for the saloon is really the problem of the Total Absti- 
nence cause, and of deliverance from the saloon in politics. 

Three fortifications of the Liquor Traffic exist in the 
ranks of reputable and moral people : 

1. The religious fortification of the sacramental wine- 
cup. 

2. The social custom fortification among people who are 
not given to drunkenness, and, 

3. The fortification of medical prescription of alcoholic 
beverages. 

It would not be so difficult to abolish the traffic if 
only the low groggery element sustained it. 

Right here I want to say, at the convention of the 
State Medical Society of Illinois, in Chicago, a few weeks 
ago, the president gave a very excellent paper in regard 
to the uses of alcohol, and not only recommended that it 
should be disused as a medical agency, but that all doc- 
tors who should be known to have the drink habit 
should be disbarred in the profession. 



110 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE COHGRESS. 

It would not be so difficult to destroy the business of 
making and selling alcoholic poison were not the traffic 
exactly in line, on general principles, with the genius of 
our economic and commercial systems. This genius is 
the legal right of the money-making power to ignore 
moral considerations and abstract principles of right, 
as well as the welfare of others, in business. This is the 
mightiest foe with which the opposers of the saloon 
have to contend. 

Children are the most promising constituency for the 
abolition of the saloon in the future, and for the success 
of the only Prohibition that cannot fail — self-prohibition. 
The broad foundation of kindergarten training, to es- 
tablish habits of controlling desire and appetite to ra- 
tional ends, is the very root of prohibitory work. The 
children and youth of to-day need to be taught the 
science of man, to learn that the greatness and glory of 
manhood and womanhood is mastership of the weaker 
and fleshly side of human nature by the higher and di- 
vine humanity which was pronounced to be " a little 
lower than the angels." Were it mine to direct and 
dispose all the working forces in Temperance, I should 
centre them chiefly upon the education and training of 
children ; and especially to enlist the interest and co- 
operative work of boys in promoting Total Abstinence 
from alcoholic beverages and tobacco. And this edu- 
cation should extend to habits of eating. Abstaining 
from food that favors or creates a desire for stimulating 
drinks is as necessary as abstinence from alcoholic drinks. 
Experiments have proven that a farinaceous diet will 
destroy the relish for alcoholic drinks. The foundation 
Temperance principle is that bodily habits shall not 
interfere with the higher development of man as a 
spiritual being. 

After this education to destroy the demand for the 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, 111 

saloon, I would seek the abolition of alcohol in the 
sacrament. 

If the frequenters of first-class saloons and convivial 
pleasure-seekers everywhere could be reached by a Tem- 
perance evangelist, and they could be persuaded to seek 
a higher standard of satisfaction and social intercourse, 
this should be a part of agitation and education. 

The medical prescription of alcoholic beverages is be- 
coming less frequent, and reform is slowly advancing in 
that direction. The sixteen months' experiment by Dr. 
Mary Weeks Burnett, of Chicago, of entire abstinence 
from alcoholic remedies in every malady, emergency, or 
injury in the Temperance Hospital founded by her, was 
a cheering demonstration of the truth that there is no 
need for alcohol in the human system. 

Until there is a very much stronger sentiment and 
moral force against any use of alcoholic beverages, and 
until dealing in alcoholic poison is not held to be a, 
" common law right " by a considerable portion of the 
people, prohibitory legislation will avail little. 

When the coming man and woman have been educated 
to the truth that alcohol is a destructive poison which 
the physical man cannot assimilate nor the spiritual 
man control, and which no man-devised statute should 
sanction or permit to be dealt out as a beverage, and 
when from infancy and childhood they have been trained 
in the habit of considering the good or bad effect of food 
or drink as binding upon them to govern their eating 
and drinking, we shall have an unwritten law in the 
moral force of the people that will abolish the saloon 
and the " original package." 

The boy of to-day will in a few short years either make 
the statutes you frame now of no effect, or will extin- 
guish the demand for the saloon by his personal prohi- 
bition. 



112 KATIOKAL TEMPERAHCE CONGRESS. 

The girl of to day, if rightly educated, will be pre- 
pared to train the future man in Temperance principles, 
and the coming woman wiR not marry the man who 
drinks wine or whiskey, nor perpetuate the weakness of 
ungoverned appetite in the children of intemperate 
fathers. 

Educational prohibition cannot fail to prohibit. 

Hon. W. Martin Jones, of Rochester, New York, said : 

Mr. President : I am a Prohibitionist. I am a third- 
party Prohibitionist. I have looked forward with a great 
deal of expectation and interest to this Congress. I hope 
to see some things go out of it that will crystallize the 
Temperance element in this country, and that will enable 
that element to move forward solidly against the saloon. 
But while I am in favor of third-party work, I am ready to 
move by the side of a Democrat or a Republican, and vote 
either a Democratic or Republican ticket, if either one 
of those parties will adopt and carry out the resolutions 
of enmity to the saloon. In other words, I may say, 
I am not wedded so to any political party but that I am 
ready to work and vote with those who are in favor of 
the annihilation of the Liquor Traffic. And now I want 
to say that I mean, by annihilation of the Liquor Traffic, 
the annihilation of the traffic in lager beer as well as 
whiskey. It is the light wines that are making drunk- 
ards of the people in France and Germany ; for I have 
seen them stagger there too. And I would say, also, 
against the sale of cider when it intoxicates. I want to 
correct one or two statements made. A brother on the 
stand said that the third-party Prohibitionists — that is, 
the right wing of the Temperance forces — had been fir- 
ing into the centre of High License ; and they ought to 
do that ; but also that they had been firing into the left 
wing of Moral Suasion. That is a mistake. We have 
never aimed our guns at Moral Suasion. It is the right 



WEDNESDAY AFTERXOOX. 113 

arm of this work. And so to-day I come not merely in- 
dividually, but I come also to represent, by request, as 
one of the Executive Committee, the largest Temperance 
organization working on Moral Suasion lines in the world 
— the Good Templar Order. Some of you have not heard 
of it possibly. That organization is encircling the 
globe ; has its lodges everywhere almost where there is 
civilization ; and we are working on the Moral Suasion 
line. And this brings me to the point here — that is, the 
systematic prosecution of the Total Abstinence work. 
I am in favor of it. I have been at work at it ever since 
I was a boy ten years old, and I shall keep on that line 
as long as I live. But I want to say that our work will 
not be accomplished in the saloon by Moral Suasion. I 
say to my friends, I would carry Moral Suasion with one 
•hand to the drunkard, but Legal Suasion also to the 
drunkard-maker. 

The assembly was favored with a song by Miss Louise 
Hay mar, of Washington. 

The next topic was : 

How May the Churches Aid most Effectively 
in the Destruction of the Liquor Traffic ? 

The first speaker was the Rev. James M. Buckley, 
D.D., of New York, who said : 

Mr. President, and Friends of Temperance and Human- 
ity : It is an honor to be invited and a pleasure to be per- 
mitted to present the results of some experience and ob- 
servation upon this important question. There are times 
when language is used merely for entertainment, and 
others when it is employed solely for the purpose of per- 
suasion. But this is not a time for pleasant words nor 
a time for personal appeals. This topic requires matured 
thoughts, and words designed to condense them and ex- 
press them in a forcible way. 



114 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

Much is said about what the Church could do. Com- 
paratively little is said of what the Church does. It is 
the fashion of many to intimate that the Church does 
little or nothing, because it does not put forth the effort 
which might be expected of it if it were united and con- 
centrated upon a single purpose. 

The Church is the foundation of every true reform, of 
every organized effort to lift up man ; and this should 
never be forgotten. Only the person ignorant of , the 
history and condition of the world will fail to recognize 
it. So that I will not insult the intelligence of the Con- 
gress by attempting to demonstrate it. I state it, as the 
true qualifier and supporter of all that follows. 

And, first, the Church exerts an influence by its doc- 
trines and its discipline. How can it by these promote 
the destruction of the Liquor Traffic and of Intemperance ? 
Its doctrinal statements mast be clear, and such as will 
carry the conscience of its members and of the people. 
Therefore all refinements requiring recondite studies and 
analytical discussions should be left out of the statements 
of the Church upon the subject, and there should be 
only such statements as command the assent when they 
are made ; and of these there have been in the different 
denominations several which do not admit of improve- 
ment — so clear, so concise, so all-inclusive, as respects 
the moral and humanitarian aspects bearing upon the in- 
dividual conscience, that wherever uttered with dignity 
or presented without diverting influences they command 
assent. No argument in the negative can be raised. 

With respect to the discipline of the Church, the crime 
of drunkenness should be condemned explicitly, and 
provision made for the censure and the punishment (as 
the denominations have a right to punish, under the law 
of Christ) of those who violate the law. And concern- 
ing that use of ardent spirits as a beverage which al- 



WEDNESDAY AFTEIt^OOX. 115 

ways precedes drunkenness and, generally speaking, 
practically, not universally, leads to it, this also should 
be condemned in doctrinal statement, and its treatment 
provided for in disciplinary regulations. 

But the Church also exerts a mighty influence by those 
resolutions which, without the force of law, sustain law 
and unify and strengthen sentiment. All ecclesiastical 
bodies have conventions. These conventions may be 
empowered to enact, or merely to consider. In the lat- 
ter case they are called congresses ; in the former, con- 
ferences or councils or conventions, according to the 
terms used by the denominations. Resolutions upon 
various moral subjects are often presented. They are 
discussed, they are adopted. Every church should so 
speak in these resolutions as to confirm and illustrate and : 
enforce its discipline and doctrinal views ; and in these, 
as they admit of change from time to time, it may adapt 
itself to the progress of sentiment so as always to speak 
in the concrete, in a way to stir up men to meet the 
present emergency. 

Moreover, in the local administration of discipline the 
Church can and should do much. It should move with 
caution as respects those aspects of the subject which come 
under the declaration, " Brethren, if a man be overtaken 
in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such a one in the 
spirit of meekness." And every church officer, whether 
minister or layman, should have the moral courage to 
expostulate with that member of the church who trifles 
with the use of ardent spirits as a beverage. That man 
is a moral coward who does not dare to speak to a 
brother privately, but from the safe rampart of a pulpit 
harangues the public, making it obvious that he means a 
person who sits before him in the pew. And of such 
moral cowards there is a considerable number in every 
convention, who, supported by applause, will denounce, 



116 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

but who speak not in private, according to the prescribed 
method. The Church can accomplish wonders by the 
proper presentation of subjects in their appropriate as- 
pects from the pulpit. Discourses should be preached, ac- 
cording to the nature of the difficulties contended against. 
Some difficulties can be met better by presenting the op- 
posite virtue, and saying nothing whatever concerning 
the vice. But intemperance is not one of these diffi- 
culties, simply because, in its incipient stages, and in all 
that relates to it, it belongs to the manifestation of Satan 
as an angel of light. It comes before us under the guise 
of friendship, of the social usages which attach us to 
each'other. It associates itself with art and with music, 
and with the courtesies of life, and with distinguished 
state dinners, and the dinners of great societies of every 
kind ; and for a man to fancy that he can stand up in 
the pulpit and preach against intemperance by the use 
of abstract terms and by descriptions of a typical na- 
ture is to fall into a grievous error. The preaching of 
Nathan is required — in its spirit, personal — " Thou art 
the man." Nathan preached privately. He did not 
stand upon the housetop when he described David. But 
the spirit of the preacher must be, " Thou art the man," 
upon these aspects of the subject, to the church of which 
he is the pastor and the community in which he lives. 
These sermons should not indulge in discussions which 
divert attention from the main point. There should be 
no exaggeration, no strong personalities, no attacks on 
political and other bodies ; no language which can give 
an opportunity to those who are too anxious to secure it 
to divert attention from the main issue. They should be 
frequent, but not wearisome. And, above all, the speaker 
should endeavor to present the subject in such a way as 
to command respect for his intelligence, for his self-pos- 
session, for his manhood, for his knowledge. He can 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON". 117 

often better exhibit these by what he leaves out than by 
what he would most naturally put in ; and Dr. Cheever 
observed, on one occasion, that the most powerful dis- 
course he ever preached on Temperance was one in which 
he had first thought of everything he would naturally be 
expected to say, and then laid it all aside and just struck 
to the very marrow of the question, and presented the 
things which are not ordinarily presented in such a dis- 
course. 

Another thing the Church can do : it can teach its 
members the necessity and the solemn duty of exercis- 
ing their political influence against the Liquor Traffic. 
Of course, you will expect me to distinguish between a 
minister's preaching the doctrines and the praises and 
the usages of a political party, and setting forth the 
principle which applies with great force to every citizen, 
to every Christian, and to every patriot. The minister 
who believes in Prohibition has a perfect right, and it is 
his duty, to preach the principle of Prohibition in the 
pulpit of his church ; and no individual will oppose 
him, provided he have the wisdom and the self-control 
to discriminate between attempting to dictate to the peo- 
ple from the pulpit as to the particular ballot they are to 
cast and the particular party they are to vote for, and 
teaching them that they must, wherever tbey vote, use 
their influence to the best of their ability in favor of 
that principle. I refer, of course, to the prohibition of 
the Liquor Traffic, as it relates to the use of liquors as a 
beverage. 

To conclude, then, in this fifteen-minute address, I 
add that it is the duty of every pastor to avail himself 
of the social opportunities to exert his influence in favor 
of Total Abstinence. I suggest for you the marvellous 
example of the Right Rev. Bishop Potter, of this city, 
who, when rector of Grace Church, though not primarily 



118 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

believing that the use of wine is a sin per se, perceiving 
that he could exert no powerful influence in favor of 
Temperance except by practising Total Abstinence, de- 
liberately resolved to do so, and, in a number of the last 
years of his position there, at no wedding nor anywhere 
else ever allowed himself to touch one solitary drop of 
wine. 

Be not deceived by these high-sounding words, that 
if the Church were to unite it could sweep away these 
things in a moment. As well might we attempt to rid 
the country of the English sparrow by appointing a day 
on which every citizen in Canada and British America 
should devote himself to destroying sparrows and their 
eggs. No such union ever comes to pass. The Church 
works locally, or not at all ; but as it works locally, it 
also sustains every great public movement. 
Joseph Cook, of Boston, spoke as follows : 
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : Every drunkard 
is immortal. No drunkard, as such, can inherit the 
kingdom of heaven. These appear to me to be 
principles which overarch and undergird and penetrate, 
as a diameter, the whole theme of the duty of tho 
churches in the battle against the Liquor Traffic. Let it 
not be supposed that I think for an instant that the 
churches can do anything more effective against the 
Liquor Traffic than to preach the Gospel. But if I am 
to confine myself to less obvious considerations, I will 
remind you that in fifty years, or at most in seventy-rive, 
there will be, according to the predictions of our wisest 
satisticians, ten millions of people living within cannon- 
shot range of the Statue of Liberty, at the New York 
gates of the ocean. Other cities will grow as New York 
will, in a manner that is likely to astound the next cen- 
tury. Already the sovereignty of the saloon is the chief 
fact in municipal politics. The sovereignty of the 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. 119 

saloon threatens disaster to Ultimate America. That 
sovereignty never will be overthrown by the unanimity 
of political parties, unless there shall be first brought 
about a practical unanimity of the churches, the plat- 
forms, the presses, the parlors. As Speaker Reed said, 
u Politicians are eleventh-hour men. They never bear the 
heat and burden of the day." You can no more overthrow 
the unanimity of the Liquor Traffic by the dispersed an- 
tagonistic convictions of our Temperance population than 
you can pulverize a boulder by rolling against it a hoop- 
less cask. The Temperance cask in this country needs 
cooperage, and resists it ! I would not undertake this 
task, even in connection with a single one of the pieces 
of the cask, if I had not been ajDpointed to it. But I 
am to read rapidly what I shall name 

An Essay on Seven Hoops for the Church Tem- 
perance Cask. 

At what level ought American churches to seek unanim- 
ity in opposition to the chief source of crime, poverty, 
industrial waste, social misery, and political corruption 
— i.e., the Liquor Traffic ? 

First, it is safe to assert that the churches ought to rise 
to the Temperance level of the public schools. 

THE FIRST HOOP. 

Mandatory instruction in the schools of twenty-seven 
States and Territories of the American Union has recently 
set up, in the name of science, a new, unassailable, and 
alluring standard. Below that standard the voluntary 
Temperance inculcations directly or indirectly given by 
the precept and example of the churches ought not to be 
allowed to fall. This does not necessarily mean that the 
churches should devote as much time as the schools do to 
scientific Temperance instruction, nor that they should em- 



120 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

ploy the methods of the schools ; but it does mean that 
they should not be satisfied with inferior results. The 
standard enforced by voluntary Christian action in the re- 
ligious training of the young in the matter of Temperance 
ought not to be lower than the standard made mandatory 
by public law in their secular training. This principle 
of reform in the relations of the churches to the Temper- 
ance cause is as fair and safe as it is comprehensive and 
radical. It means that the Sunday-schools should be 
taught as sound Temperance doctrine as the secular 
schools. It means that preachers should all lift their 
precept and example in the pulpit and parlor to the 
level which secular teachers are now required to attain 
in the school-desk. It means that church-members every- 
where should rise to the Temperance level of compulsory 
instruction in the common schools. 

"What is that level ? The mandatory Temperance in- 
struction now given in the public schools requires every- 
where total abstinence from all narcotics— that is, from 
both alcohol and tobacco. A majority of the future 
citizens of the nation are now in schools which teach 
Total Abstinence. Such instruction is mandatory in all 
the schools, naval and military, as well as territorial, 
now under the care of our Federal Government. It has 
been necessary to achieve a great victory over apathetic, 
corrupt, or hostile State legislatures, in order to secure 
this advanced Temperance instruction by authority of 
public law. It has been necessary to achieve a greater 
victory over the foremost publishers of text-books, to in- 
duce them to issue sound Temperance doctrines in vol- 
umes on physiology and hygiene. Both these victories, 
by the blessing of Heaven on the labors of Mrs. Hunt and 
her assistants in the Woman's National Christian Tem- 
perance Union, have been achieved, and so a new era 
dawns. Great publishing houses, such as the Apple- 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. 121 

tons, A. S. Barnes & Co., Ivison, Blakeman & Co., Van 
Antwerp, Bragg & Co., or such as the syndicate of text- 
book publishers lately organized, now issue approved 
Temperance text-books all keyed up to the level of Total 
Abstinence. 

If standard and approved Temperance text-books are 
used, nothing less than Total Abstinence can be taught in 
the secular schools. It is highly important that a 
school-teacher should bring his personal example up to 
the level of his official precept ; but in twenty-seven 
States and Territories of the American Union, every 
teacher must now bring his official precept up to the level 
of Total Abstinence. If a teacher should be a Total Ab- 
stainer, then, for yet stronger reasons, every preacher 
should be, and every church-member. 

As to the methods by which the Temperance instruc- 
tion of the young is to be brought up in the churches to 
at least the level it has attained in the schools, each 
church must of course decide for itself. I venture to 
suggest only that by pulpit hints or special addresses 
and lectures, by Sabbath-school instruction, by the use 
of pledges, by the circulation of sound Temperance litera- 
ture, and especially by personal example, the standard of 
Total xVbstinence should be everywhere preached in the 
churches. Mr. Spurgeon was many years ago a wine- 
drinker, but now he says, " More men have been killed 
by grape juice than by grape-shot." The new approved 
Temperance text-books which are now moulding the secu- 
lar schools of the nation ought to be in all Sunday-school 
libraries. Once a month at least instruction in harmony 
with these standard books should in some way be effec- 
tively given in all Sunday-schools. Lift the youth, the 
adult membership, and all the preachers of your churches 
to the level of Total Abstinence, which is now the level 
not only of the secular schools, but even of the life as- 



122 KATIO^AL TEMPERANCE COKGKESS. 

surance societies, and immense results must sooner or 
later follow. The new heights and uplands of scientific 
Temperance instruction and religious precept and example 
will form a vast water- shed down which will flow new 
rivers of Temperance sentiment, with resistless currents 
and unflinching cataracts that will cleanse the land. 

SECOND. 

All the Christian denominations ought to rise to the 
level attained by the largest and strongest Protestant 
bodies in the United States, and declare that no ruin- 
seller shall be accepted as a church-member. This is the 
standard of the Presbyterian Church and of the Meth- 
odist, and of many smaller but not less earnest and con- 
sistent denominations. 

THIRD. 

As no rumseller ought to be accepted as a church- 
member, all denominations of Christians ought to rise to 
the level of the Methodist body, and declare that the 
Liquor Traffic can never be legalized without sin. The 
Church cannot consistently exclude rumsellers from 
membership, and at the same time favor License for rum- 
sellers. It cannot in reason or honor with one hand make 
rumsellers and with the other hand excommunicate 
rumsellers, 

FOURTH. 

If rumsellers Ought not to be church-members, and if 
the Liquor Traffic can never be legalized without sin, 
then it follows that church-members ought never to vote 
for a political candidate who is in favor of legalizing the 
Liquor Traffic. While the churches as such need not 
declare for any one political party, they ought to declare 
that church-members as individuals should support no 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. 123 

political party that is dominated by the whiskey rings. 
Christians on their knees before God will never vote for 
any party on its knees before the Liquor Traffic. 

FIFTH. 

The churches will support law and order by the 
whole power of their moral and social and political 
influence. Although Christians may not vote for 
License, yet, if a License law is on the statute-book, 
Christians will help to execute it. License restricts a 
part of the traffic, and at the same time legalizes a part. 
To vote for a License law is to do evil that good may 
come. In helping to execute a License law for which 
they have not voted, Christians simply emphasize its re- 
strictive features, without making themselves responsible 
for its permissive features. In some communities busi- 
ness men who oppose the saloon are boycotted, and out- 
spoken Temperance lecturers are in danger of assassina- 
tion. George Haddocks blood yet cries out unavenged 
from the ground of the open street of Sioux City, Editor 
GambrelPs from the banks of the Mississippi, Osborne 
Congleton's supposed lifeless body from the bay of San 
Francisco. Combination on the part of the dram-shop 
oligarchy to terrorize good citizens should lead to com- 
bination of good citizens to uphold law and order. In 
some localities church leagues are needed for the pro- 
tection of both business men and preachers who consist- 
ently champion Temperance laws already on the statute- 
books. Every adult church-member ought to belong to 
a law and order league, or a church league, or some or- 
ganization of similar scope and purpose, designed to de- 
fend business men, on the one hand, and their preachers, 
lecturers, and editors, on the other, against the lawless at- 
tacks of the liquor leagues, already organized from sea 
to sea. - 



124 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS, 

SIXTH. 

There should be a great extension of visitation from 
house to house by church-members, as individuals, as 
committees, and as companies in support of the Temper- 
ance reform. Personal contact with the tempted and 
the tempters on the part of church-members has great 
possibilities of good that as yet have not been fully util- 
ized in the Temperance field, nor indeed adequately ex- 
plored and discussed. Let the co-operative and aggres- 
sive work of visitation proposed by the Evangelical Al- 
liance be carried out so as to reach both drunkards and 
their families, on the one hand, and saloon-keepers and 
corrupt politicians on the other. 

SEVENTH. 

The churches should unitedly insist on the closing of 
saloons on Sundays and election days, and on the prohi- 
bition of the sale of liquor to drunkards and minors. 

There is no reason why the churches, on these seven 
points, should not reach unanimity, and if unanimity, 
then victory. 

Mr. Cook read as his personal Prohibition creed the 
following original stanzas, entitled : 

WEBS AND FLIES.* 
Whiskey spiders, great and greedy, 

Weave their webs from sea to sea ; 
They grow fat and men grow needy : 

Shall our robbers rulers be ? 

Sweep the webs away, the Nation j 

In its wrath and wisdom cries ; 
Say the fools with hesitation, 

No ; but educate the flies ! 

Both we do. Less now is blunder. 

Let the school bring noontide near ; 
Let the Church sound seven-fold thunder ; 

But the webs must disappear. 



* These veroes should appear at close of Mr. Cook's second speech. 
(See page WO.) 



WEDNESDAY AFTER^OOX. 125 

Loops that stoutest statesmen strangle, 

Politicians' lasso dread, 
Harlots 1 lure, and gamblers' tangle, 

Weave the spiders with their thread.] 

Widows, orphans, paupers, taxes, 

Hang as prey within the net ; 
Madmen, riots, battle-axes, 

Souls whose 6un of hope has set. 

Up ! the webs are full of slaughter ; 

Sweep away the spiders' lair. 
Up ! wife, husband, son and daughter, 

Make the vexed earth pure and fair. 

Where now red-f anged murder burrows 

Let glad harvests wave sublime ; 
Sink the webs beneath new furrows, 

In the giant fields of time. 

Mrs. Mary T. Lathrap, of Michigan, President of the 
Michigan Woman's Christian Temperance Union, was 
called upon, and said : 

I am at this moment, dear friends, the victim of some 
well-intentioned friends, and I am here greatly to my 
own surprise. 

The President : And our delight. 

Mrs. Lathrap : I came to this Congress as a learner 
and not as a teacher ; and on this particular theme that 
we have been listening to just now, it seems to me about 
all has been said that can be said. I am very much in- 
terested in this especial theme, because I believe that the 
moral forces in any nation are its imperial forces, and I 
believe that a nation is only safe when the moral forces 
are on the throne. I believe that in our civilization, in 
our great cities and in some of our Eastern common- 
wealths, we are reaching the moral dead-line, when the 
moral forces are beaten down and beaten back by the 
forces of evil. 

Now I believe that the Church is the home, and ought 
to be the organized expression of moral forces in gov- 
ernment, just as I believe that the saloon is the organized 



126 ifcTATIOSTAL TEMPERAKCE COXGRESS. 

form of the devil's kingdom on earth. I believe, there- 
fore, that there is no attitude for the Church that is con- 
sistent with its principles and with the Bible of God, 
except in an uncompromising warfare, both moral and 
political, against this evil. If the saloon were only a 
force for immorality, if it only made its successes from 
man to man, by forces that reached the individual and 
reached society, then it would not be necessary for the 
Church, in sustaining the moral forces in government, to 
have anything to do with political forces. But what- 
ever may be said about the Liquor Traffic in its begin- 
nings, to-day the strongest intrenchment of the Liquor 
Traffic lies in a wrong attitude of government toward it. 
Not in its money, not in its men, not even in its in- 
famous character ; but it stands in this country to-day, 
in its imperial force to move things and move men and 
control elections and control policies, simply because of 
a wrong attitude of government toward it. That atti- 
tude of government toward the Liquor Traffic has been 
decided by the attitude of political parties that from 
time to time have been in power ; because we come to 
attitudes of government only by the choice of citizens 
— in what we call political parties — of certain principles ; 
and when citizens agree on those principles, to lift those 
principles to the throne of successful majorities, then 
they become the methods of empire and the attitude of 
government. Now if the strongest intrenchment of the 
Liquor Traffic to-day is in a wrong attitude of govern- 
ment, if that attitude is decided by the political parties 
that from time to time are in power, then the citizen 
stands back of that attitude of the political party. And 
if the Christian citizenship in this nation were united 
against any attitude and any political party that could 
possibly, when it came to power, mean an attitude of 
protection or perpetuation of License in government, we 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. 127 

» 
could take this whole system down in the peaceful revo- 
lution of the ballot-box. I believe that opinions, how- 
ever good they are, when disembodied are of no more 
use in this world than disembodied spirits. Arid I be- 
lieve that these opinions ought to come together and ex- 
press themselves through that organization that represents 
the imperial forces of morality and government. I be- 
lieve the Church has a right, when a man comes into its 
membership, to interfere with his personal opinions about 
drinking, as Joseph Cook has just said, and make him a 
Total Abstainer. I believe that the Church has a right to 
interfere with a man's personal opinions about the selling 
of liquor, or giving it socially to his friends, and thereby 
interfere with his putting his example on that side. I 
believe that the preaching and the teaching of the Church 
has a right to interfere with a man's opinions about his 
own party affiliations, and to revolutionize them until he 
won't vote for a License candidate or a License party. 
When the Church shall thus combine, as the Liquor 
Traffic is combined on the other side, when its press, 
its pulpit, its discussions (as I believe there ought to 
be discussions) — when all these things, and its votes 
shall combine, the Liquor Traffic will be wiped out, by 
the will of God and His people, from the face of the 
earth. 

The President read a telegram from Shickshinny, 
Pa., as follows : 

" To the Temperance Congress: Greeting : 2 Samuel 10 : 
12. W. C. T. XL, Luzerne County Convention." 

The passage reads, " Be of good courage, and let us 
play the men for our people, and for the cities of our 
God : and the Lord do that which seemeth Him good." 

The Rev. J. H. Hector, of California, spoke as follows : 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen : The first thing 
I want to do is to paint that Church cask of Mr. Cook's, 



128 RATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGBESS. 

of Boston. I want to paint it about my shade. The first 
thing is, What is a Christian ? Why, he is threefold in 
his character — a joy to heaven ; for God's golden truth 
tells me that when a man gives his heart to God and 
leaves the pathways of sin, there is more joy in heaven 
over one sinner that repents than over ninety and nine 
just persons that need no repentance. God's word tells 
me, next, that he is a light to the world, and a foe to all 
evil. 

Well, what are his duties ? They are twofold in char- 
acter. He is to love his God with all his heart, and hi3 
neighbor as himself. And any man that does that can't 
support whiskey, whether the License is high or low. 

Well, what is the matter with the Church now ? The 
same thing is the matter with her now that there was in 
the days when God touched the hearts of some of the 
best men and women that your republic ever knew, to 
plead the cause of the liberty of four and a half millions 
of my people. What was the matter with the Church 
then ? She got wrong. They rushed and got their 
Bibles and preached eloquent sermons, and said that sla- 
very was a Divine institution, ordained of God ; and the 
colored people in the gallery said, Amen; and that is 
how slavery lived so long. 

To-day you are brought face to face with another gi- 
gantic problem. Not only are four and a half millions 
of black-skinned people enslaved, but the dark and 
damning influences of strong drink have wrought chains 
on the limbs of all the people who dwell in your repub- 
lic — black, white, blue, grizzly, yellow, green, and gray. 
And the day-dawn is here, with her golden light, for the 
overthrow of this gigantic wrong. And we find a class 
of men to-day who are in the Church of God that have 
assumed the same position toward whiskey that they did 
toward slavery. And the thing that makes me indignant 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. 129 

is to see men in the Church of the Living God assuming 
this position, and by a High License act placing the 
same price on your own sons and daughters that you had 
on black people about thirty odd years ago. And until 
the Church of the Living God comes out and does her 
duty clearly on this question, the traffic will stay. And 
may God help the Church to so act that the dawn of the 
beautiful day will early appear, when that old flag, that 
has been wet with my blood and the best blood of the 
best men of the nation, shall no longer be seen floating 
over a brewery or distillery or a saloon ! 

Mr. Edwin Higgins, President of the Maryland State 
Temperance Alliance, spoke as follows : 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : The children are 
the jewels of the home and the church, the hope, the 
glory, and they are soon to become the strength and the 
stay of the nation. They are as dear as the heart's blood 
to the patriot, the philanthropist, and the Christian. The 
Church can win the children to the Temperance Reform. 
Why should not a Christian and patriotic people take and 
consecrate its State and National holidays to Temperance 
and patriotism ? There are thousands of church build- 
ings and chapels scattered over the land, and thousands 
upon thousands of hearts and hands ready to unite. 
Utilize the buildings, enlist the workers in this enterprise. 

Five years ago, in Baltimore, we began with a single 
Band of Hope to celebrate the " Fourth of July." Last 
year a united Temperance effort gathered an audience of 
eight hundred souls in St. Peter's Protestant Episcopal 
Church. It was an inspiring occasion. The exercises 
were from 10 a.m. to 12 m., allowing the remainder of 
the day for other diversions. Every boy and girl was 
presented with and wore a miniature national flag, pinned 
on by fair hands. The Divine blessing was invoked. 
Sacred, patriotic, and Temperance songs, stirring ad- 



130 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

dresses, supplemented by the simplest of refreshments, 
rendered the occasion both popular and profitable. 

The State Alliance is now arranging for four or more 
celebrations in Baltimore, and for others in a number of 
the cities, towns, and villages of the State. We can all 
unite in this work. It is plain and simple. I know of 
nothing so easily done, so productive of beneficent results. 
Will you not go to your homes and arouse the churches 
to immediate action ? Our country and our cause de- 
mand it. We can have a miniature Temperance congress 
in every community on every State and National holi- 
day. We must train, protect, and save the children. It 
is a thousand times easier to form the character than to 
reform it. The persistent inculcation of ennobling 
principles will mould the nation. Then, from our homes 
shall come an invincible army, which, under God, shall 
sweep the saloon from our land, and America shall be 
free. 

Rev. Charles H. Payne, D.D., LL.D., Corresponding 
Secretary of the Board of Education of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, spoke as follows : 

Mr. President and Christian Friends : Why should not 
the sentiments which have just been expressed on this 
platform be carried into practical eif ect by the entire 
Christian Church ? Why should not the word go forth 
from this Congress that the representatives of all denom- 
inations of Christians in this land gathered here for 
council, unanimously and heartily agree to wage united, 
aggressive, never-ceasing warfare against the traffic which 
is the greatest crime of Christendom and the greatest 
foe of man ? Could such a word go forth on the light- 
ning's wing, echoed by the press and sounding the 
bugle-call of war for all the Lord's people against this 
greatest enemy of His Church, what consternation would 
it carry into the liquor-dealers' camp ! And is it too 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON 131 

much to expect ? Is it unreasonable or impracticable for 
Christ's Church entire to stand upon a common plat- 
form of antagonism to the Liquor Traffic, by the use of 
these agencies ? 

1. By educating all the youth of our congregations and 
Sunday-schools and homes concerning the moral and the 
physical evils arising from the use of alcoholic drinks, so 
that there shall no longer be any youth within the reach 
of the Church's influence who shall not know that the 
use of strong drink is a sin against his body, mind, and 
soul, hazarding every interest for two worlds. 

2. Cannot the entire Church unite in fostering and 
emphasizing a right sentiment as to the personal use of 
alcoholic beverages ? Whatever may be said of other 
countries and of other ages, there ought now to be no 
longer any intelligent doubt or question that in our 
country and under the circumstances which environ us, 
with the ardent temperament of our people — in a word, 
with America's climate, America's type of civilization, 
America's saloon system, no man can be a so-called 
moderate drinker without being a most immoderate sin- 
ner against the nineteenth century, against Christendom, 
against all highest ideals of character and conduct, 
against the religious and scientific light of the age and 
country in which Jie lives. 

3. Cannot we all, of whatever Christian name, agree 
to wage aggressive warfare against the traffic in intoxicat- 
ing drink ? 

We have now reached the stage in the march of prog- 
ress when every Christian church ought to be a Total 
Abstinence society. We have reached the hour when 
every Christian church ought to be known byond all 
questioning as an avowed and uncompromising enemy 
of the whole business of the manufacture and sale of 
alcoholic beverages. I thank Mr. Cook for his generous 



132 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

recognition of the attitude taken by the Methodist 
Church, to which it is my privilege to belong, in its 
open and official declaration that the Liquor Traffic is a 
business " which cannot be legalized without sin." Has 
not the time now fully come when every ecclesiastical 
body in our free and favored land will unite in this 
pronouncement, and every Christian church fall into line 
and march in solid, serried columns under a common 
flag bearing this legend, inspiring hope in the hearts of 
the Lord's people, causing terror among the traffickers 
in the souls of men, " Total Abstinence for the indi- 
vidual, Total Prohibition for the Liquor Traffic" ? I 
would not, indeed, have any church or any minister an 
advocate for a political party, but ought not every min- 
ister and every Christian man to be equally careful that 
he neither upholds nor apologizes for the sins of any or- 
ganization, ecclesiastical or political, in its alliances with 
the Liquor Power ? 

4. Cannot the entire Church agree to have done with 
this thoroughly outworn cry, " Let us keep this Tem- 
perance question out of politics"? Shall intelligent 
Christian men be longer deceived by this fair seeming 
fallacy ? 

We might as well be asked to keep cyclones and fevers 
and pestilence out of our land, to keep the devil out 
of the world. The question is already in politics, put 
there by the liquor oligarchy, kept there by their cease- 
less vigilance and by the political managers who seek 
party triumphs through unholy alliances with this most 
potent element in American politics, and it will never 
be gotten out of politics until extinguished by the voice 
and vote and aggregated power of that mightiest of sov- 
ereigns, the American people. 

It is, indeed, a lamentable feature of the case that this 
greatest of all moral questions ever became entangled in 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOOST. 133 

the intricacies and sophistries of politics ; but since it is 
there and cannot be removed, let all good men agree that 
it shall no longer be given an insignificant place, inferior 
to the tariff and other issues of merely moneyed interest, 
but that it shall be lifted to the prominence which its 
unequalled importance demands, and become the leading 
and pre-eminent issue, until it is settled by the decree of 
the whole nation, and National Prohibition becomes our 
national glory and safeguard. 

Guard the pulpit, indeed, against preaching party poli- 
tics, but do not let us shut our eyes to the fact that the 
great crime of slavery was once so dominant that it si- 
lenced many a pulpit and debauched the conscience of 
large sections of our country, and that to-day there is 
probably no greater peril of the Church than the peril of 
padlocking the lips of its ministry and paralyzing the 
consciences of its membership, all for the sake of peace 
in our congregations. In Heaven's name, let us beware of 
holding this menace over our ministry • let us rather bid 
the watchmen of our whole Zion sound the alarm and 
speak the word of counsel or of warning as God gives it 
to them, and fear not for the final issue. 

Rev. James C. Fernald, of Plainfield, N. J., said : 
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : I want to speak 
a word on a new point. It has been touched in the ad- 
dresses that have been made, but I think I have some 
new facts upon it — that is, Sunday-school Temperance 
Instruction. Circumstances led me to inquire what our 
quarterlies and Sunday-school papers were doing. I 
went to a great house that represents all the religious 
denominations of the United States. I asked them to 
please give me a quarterly or a paper that gave an exposi- 
tion of the Sunday-school lesson for the closing Sunday 
of this quarter ; and, upon a careful search through all 
their publications, it was impossible to find one line for 



134 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

the story of Daniel's Temperance work in Babylon, on 
the closing Sunday of this quarter, provided for, by the 
report of the Committee, in the International Series. 
Then I took the quarterlies of a great denomination — 
one of the most numerous in the United States. I find 
they do not even name the lesson. They give a mis- 
sionary lesson, but they do not mention that that Inter- 
national Committee ever thought of having a Temperance 
lesson. That is one of the greatest denominations in the 
United States. I took their juvenile quarterlies. I 
found the same thing also there, as far as I was able to 
lay my hand on them. And in all the work of that de- 
nomination through the United States, as far as the ex- 
position of their authorized publications go, there will 
be not one single word of Temperance taught to the Sab- 
bath-school children. I say it is wrong. 

I took the publications of another society, and I found 
some provision made for a Temperance lesson. When I 
had measured off the Scripture — in the old version and 
the new— I found less than the length of my finger for 
Temperance ; and there were not fifty words in that that 
taught absolute, uncompromising Total Abstinence as a 
Christian duty, as in accordance with all the teaching of 
modern science and the Temperance Reform. 

There is room here, there is a call here, for a great 
work. I want to do honor to the Sunday -School Times, 
which, as far as I have observed (though the present 
number has not come to my hands), has provided for a 
Temperance lesson. But now the Woman's Christian 
Temperance Union is demanding that a Sunday be given 
— not an alternative, optional lesson, but a Sunday, 
perhaps the first in the quarter. And I want to call the 
attention of this Congress to H. I want to ask that the 
influence of this Congress be given to the demand that 
four half hours in the year shall be given, in the Sunday- 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. 135 

schools of the nation, to teaching the depth of this curse 
that destroys eleven hundred millions of treasure and a 
hundred thousand souls in our America every year, and 
is a danger to every person growing up in our society, 
with this temptation thick around — in a word, teaching 
Total Abstinence from all that can intoxicate. Is this 
too much to ask of the Christian Church ? and should 
not the voice of this Congress go out for it, so that the 
International Committee shall do it ? 
The next topic was, 

The Coffee-House and Other Substitutes for the 

Saloon. 

Mr. Joshua L. Bailey opened the discussion as follows : 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentleman : Leaving to the 
others who are to follow me whatever reference is to be 
made to other substitutes, I shall confine the few re- 
marks which I make to the only one which is mentioned 
in the topic — the Coffee-House. 

The underlying thought with me is, that it is very 
often possible to do by indirect means that which we 
cannot accomplish by more open inxthods. The travel- 
ler upon the prairie, seeing the nre approaching, feels 
pretty sure that he will not be likely to avoid it. What 
does he do ? He kindles a fire to meet it. And so it has 
been sought to meet the fiery appetite for strong drink 
by setting over against it something similar in kind but 
different in effect. 

" Our forefathers lived in an age of nascent evils." So 
wrote the old Lord Shaftesbury. " Evils," he said, 
4 'which they neither saw nor heeded." We live in an 
age of remedies. The evils have become full grown and 
lusty, but the remedies are still young and feeble. There 
is no one who is engaged in any philanthropic effort, but 
knows that he is to meet with evils, a legion in number 



136 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

and great in magnitude, and that all the remedies at hand 
are altogether ineffectual for the end desired. No greater 
evil does he find confronting him than the open saloon. 
A distinguished jurist of your State, whose name heads 
the list of those who have called this convention, has said 
that, out of all the causes of poverty and crime, intem- 
perance stands as the unapproachable chief. Now, I 
don't wish to take issue with this distinguished author- 
ity. But if he had said that of all causes of poverty and 
crime, the open saloon stands as the unapproachable 
chief, there would be less difference of opinion between 
us. I look upon intemperance as a result, the open sa- 
loon as the chief cause ; and so long as it holds a charter 
from the State it will be in vain for us to expect the ex- 
tirpation of Intemperance. Permit me to say just here, 
Mr. President, that the only regulation which the 
Liquor Traffic properly admits of is this utter extirpa- 
tion. 

I think that we are indebted to our friends across the 
water for the first inception of the Coffee-House idea. 
So far as I know, it has been as recent as within the last 
quarter of a century. Somewhere about the year 1867 
some good men in the town of Dundee, in Scotland, 
conceived the idea of having a counter-irritant to the 
saloon, and so they started a place where refreshments 
and entertainment were provided for the working peo- 
ple. Their precise purpose was set forth in the sign over 
the doorway, u The Dundee Workingman's Public House 
without Drink. n Very soon thereafter a similar place 
was established in Leeds, in England, the title being, 
" The British Workman's Public House." The imme- 
diate success of these two places, in Scotland and in 
England, incited the activities of the Temperance people, 
and was very quickly followed by like institutions in 
different towns throughout the country, known as Coffee 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. 137 

Taverns, as Coffee Palaces, and in some instances as Cocoa 
Houses, as well as Coffee Houses. It was about 1874 
when, under the Limited Liability Act, a company was 
formed in the city of London, with a capital of £10,000 
and with the Earl of Shaftesbury as its president, to es- 
tablish Coffee-Houses in that city. Within a year more 
than thirty were opened in different parts of London, 
and very soon thereafter, in the city of Liverpool, some 
of its most eminent merchants and philanthropic people 
and public-spirited citizens united in the formation of a 
similar society, with a capital of £20,000 sterling, which 
was afterward increased to £40,000 sterling. They rec- 
ognized that there was just about as much intemperance 
to the square inch in Liverpool as could be found in any 
city in the country, and they determined to do some- 
thing to meet it. The number of these places which 
they established increased in a very short time to thirty 
or forty, and the success in London and Liverpool was 
followed up in Glasgow, Birmingham, and other cities 
of the United Kingdom, until, within a few years, there 
were as many as four hundred in different parts of Great 
Britain. It is recorded as among the results that they 
were able to earn and pay dividends upon their stock. 
This, however, must be considered as the least satisfac- 
tory of all their results. The main result, and that 
which they aimed at, was the reclamation of drunkards 
and the putting of the temptation out of the way of 
young men ; and the results in that respect have been 
recorded as being exceedingly satisfactory. 

It was somewhere along these years that a similar 
movement was made by a lady in Boston, who estab- 
lished what were known as the " Holly Tree Inns." 
Those were some years ago abandoned ; the reason why, 
I am not able to state. I think there i3 a gentleman here 
from Boston, who proposes to speak upon this question, 



138 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

and I trust he will be able to give us the reason why these 
Holly Tree Inns were given up. 

It was in the same year in which the Limited Liability 
Companies were started in London and Liverpool, that a 
movement somewhat similar in character was commenced 
in Philadelphia. In that year two places of entertain- 
ment and refreshment, which were called Coffee-Houses, 
were started — one called the Central and the other the 
Model ; started in a very small way, both of them in 
centres of great population. But they grew and pros- 
pered wonderfully until a whole block of buildings, 
comprising seven stores in one row, was taken up by one 
of these institutions, and three or four large buildings 
by the other. With one of these there was a great deal 
of auxiliary work connected — a large lecture room, seat- 
ing four or five hundred persons ; three or four reading 
rooms, and various rooms for the use of different Tem- 
perance and other societies. I think it was in one of the 
rooms of that building that the early meetings of the 
"Woman's Christian Temperance Union of Philadelphia 
were held, before their full organization ; and several 
other societies had their origin under the roof of that 
building. In the course of the first year the number of 
men who partook of the entertainment which was offered 

at the counters of the Central Coffee-House reached 

• 

twenty-three hundred per day. Unfortunately, the par- 
chase of that building by the Pennsylvania Railroad 
Company, for one of its stations, required the closing up 
and abandonment of that part of the enterprise. The 
other, the Model, continues to-day without any abate- 
ment of its business, feeding from twenty-three to twenty- 
five hundred men per day. 

Now there are a few indispensable characteristics, 
which I would briefly speak of for the information and en- 
couragement of any who propose to start upon like work. 



WEDNESDAY AFTEENOON. 139 

First, the choice of location. That is indispensable. 
If we want to catch fish, we must go where the fish are. 
In the crowded places, where the men most congregate 
at the hour of noon, is the right place to start a Coffee- 
House. Then, again, the place must be made attractive. 
The saloons study that subject. They know how to make 
their places attractive. And the Coffee-House, to be suc- 
cessful, must be attractive. I don't mean that it should 
be highly ornamental, but it must be neat and tidy and 
inviting. That is an indispensable qualification. Then 
the employees must be neat and tidy, and not forbidding 
in their appearance ; and there must be a general appear- 
ance of neatness and order about the place. Again, the 
room should be well lighted and well ventilated — qual- 
ifications not always considered in a saloon. Again, 
whatever food is furnished must be the best that the 
market affords. When you invite men to give up the 
drinks to which they have been long accustomed and 
which they love, you must be sure to offer them some- 
thing better. And it was therefore a part of the plan of 
those institutions started in Philadelphia to give the 
best quality of food, and cooked in the best manner, from 
the first. And I think that a large part of the success of 
those institutions is to be attributed to that. Again, 
the price must be so as to suit the purses of those who 
have but little to spend. Again, it must be considered 
that these places are intended for workingmen. By 
workingmen I mean preachers, editors, merchants, man- 
ufacturers, mechanics, artisans, newsboys, and boot- 
blacks — every man and every boy who works, whether 
with his brain or with his hands. And while it is not 
intended to exclude any, they certainly are not intended 
for those who don't love work and won't work so long 
as they can beg or steal. 

I have one minute more, and I want to say in conclu- 



140 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

sion to any who would like to start a Coffee-House, that 
I believe there is no better work for the Temperance cause, 
no better practical work in which one can engage ; one 
which will bring a greater amount of blessing upon the 
people by whom you are surrounded, or one which will 
bring to your soul the blessings, in larger degree, of many 
who are ready to perish. 

Kev. S. H. Hilliard, of Boston, spoke as follows : 
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : I should like to 
begin by emphasizing, with all the force that I can com- 
mand, the last words of the previous speaker. I have 
had some slight experience for the last few years in what 
is called Coffee-House work ; and the conclusion that I 
have come to is that there is no kind of work which can 
possibly bring a greater blessing to those for whom wo 
labor and to those who are laboring in the cause. So 
what I have to say this afternoon ia with regard to the 
Coffee-House as a benevolent and philanthropic and re- 
ligious agency. I am not going to speak of the kind of 
Coffee-House which is a paying commercial institution. 
There are such institutions ; there are two of them in 
the city of Boston, from which I come. They were not 
organized as a merely benevolent agency. They were 
organized under the charge of a company called the Ori- 
ental Coffee Company, which had a coffee plantation at 
its back, and whose president was the owner of that 
plantation. Everything has been done by this company 
on the purely commercial basis. They have two large 
Coffee-Houses, and those Coffee-Houses have been placed 
on the principal thoroughfares. They have been placed 
in exactly the situation suggested by the previous 
speaker — that is, where they can catch the crowd as they 
go to and fro, about the hour when they feel the inclina- 
tion for a meal. Therefore it is that these have been 
provided with a very extensive plant, on the scale of the 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON". 141 

largest restaurants, and aiming to pay, to be supported 
with an extensive restaurant business. They are more 
or less successful. I think they are paying a certain 
amount of dividend, and they are managed in a compre- 
hensive way, on purely business principles. The only 
trouble with them, in regard to the efficient work for the 
promotion of Temperance, seems to me to be that they 
do not afford the opportunities for the kind of close per- 
sonal work which we want to do, whenever we open a 
place into which we tempt a drunkard or a man who is 
in any way inclined toward drink. It is not enough to 
bring them into a room or into a hall or in front of a 
counter, and give them a cup of coffee instead of a mug 
of beer or a glass of whiskey. It is not enough to seat 
them at a table where they can have a cheap meal and 
so go away feeling their hunger satisfied, and not be 
tempted into the adjoining saloon. That is a great deal, 
there is no doubt, and I believe that if a great deal of 
the force that is spent in talk were spent in this kind of 
work, we should be a long way ahead of where we are 
now in the Temperance movement. But that itself is 
not enough. Those fellows need some instrumentality 
which shall make them feel that they have an actual sub- 
stitute for that which makes to them the strongest temp- 
tation in the direction of drink. And what is that 
strongest temptation ? It has been alluded to this after- 
noon, and I believe that it is the true description. It is 
the social instinct. Man is a social animal. You are 
social animals. You know very well that there are times 
which come to every one of you, when there is a positive 
demand for recreation, no matter how much disposed 
you may be to work. There is just as strong a demand 
in your heart and mine for recreation and refreshment, 
as there is at other times that you should get up and go 
out and do your duty in the world. Now these men, who 



142 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

are working all day, perhaps most of them leading hard 
lives — lives which have a grinding experience as their pre- 
vailing experience — come to the end of a day's work, 
and they are to go home. Alas ! for the mockery of 
it. They are to go home, you say. But they have no 
home to go to. The only thing which even pretends to 
the name of home is a cold garret, or a damp cellar, or a 
street corner, or a liquor saloon, or a low theatre. That 
is all they have to satisfy the instinct which comes to 
them at the end of a day's work, desiring the rest and 
refreshment which you call the love of home — the gratify- 
ing of the love of home. And when they get there, they 
are driven out very speedily by the circumstances which 
surround them. It is of no use for us to ignore this. 
If you don't know it, the sooner you go to work and find 
it out by your own personal observation, the better it 
will be for your work in the Temperance cause. I think 
that, in all the expenditure of our forces against the sa- 
loon, we are sometimes forgetting that underneath the 
saloon power is lying the victim, and that a good deal of 
the force that we are spending in our warfare needs to be 
spent in a personal contact with him who is the victim, 
and who needs to be lifted up. 

Now that is the simple theory underlying the kind of 
Coffee-Houses that I have had anything to do with. They 
grew out of an experience in a Temperance meeting. 
They grew out of an effort to dive as deep down as we 
could, representing our Church Temperance Society in 
Boston — to dive down as deep as we could, into the low- 
est strata of the victims of drink. We established a 
meeting, which went on all one winter. We found that 
fellows came into this meeting and joined in the singing 
of hymns, and listened to addresses. The same fellows 
came every night to this meeting, and we found that we 
were actually coming in personal contact with those fel- 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. 143 

lows who, when they went home, must pass the tempta- 
tions to drink, and that the temptations to go into the 
saloons were considerably stronger than the temptation 
to go home. We found that those fellows were coming 
to us in just exactly that way, because here was a bright 
and cheerful room, and there was a good deal of singing 
going on. 

We found out by that winter's experience that to open 
a Coffee- House, with this condition of things, was a very 
simple thing to do. All we had to do was to get a room, 
to put some chairs and tables in it, and we felt very sure 
that the fellows who came to our Temperance meeting 
would come into that room ; and the result proved that 
our theory was correct. We started in that enterprise 
with $500. Somebody said to us when we first started, 
" To open a Coffee-House is a very large undertaking, and 
you need a large capital." Somebody said, " If you will 
give us $10,000 to start our plant, we will carry on the 
plant for you." We had $500, and we said, " Let us 
go ahead and do just what $500 will do." We did 
open this room, and kept it open all winter long, and 
from the very first start the room was crowded with ex- 
actly the fellows who go into saloons. They were kept 
there — how ? By the fact that there were chairs and 
tables, that there were lights and fires, that they met 
their companions and had a social, pleasant time, and 
that there were no restrictions laid upon them — that they 
could come in there and even be allowed to smoke ; they 
could come in and be allowed even to play cards ; they 
could come in and be allowed to play pool. We let 
them eome in in that way all winter, and found that the 
tone of the room was being elevated every night of every 
week. The result of that has been that within the last 
two years we have been able to open five or six of these 
rooms in Boston — these Coffee-House missions, according 



144 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

to our experiment with this one — simply a recreation 
room. It is a room where, of course, it is very desirable 
to sell as many cups of coffee as you can ; but that is not 
the first point ; and I am very much inclined to think that 
next winter we shall be very apt to have a flowing foun- 
tain, as it were, of coffee, where coffee can be had for 
nothing at any time in any evening. 

We have allowed them these privileges, and what has 
been the result ? I will illustrate simply by saying that 
we had a good many rows there. If we hadn't had these 
rows, we should have understood that we were not reach- 
ing the lowest strata, that we were aiming at. We have 
been obliged to use a good deal of moral force, and every 
now and then to clear this room of its occupants. Then 
we concluded to discipline them, and we thought per- 
haps the best way would be to shut up these rooms for 
a week and make them understand that it was simply be- 
cause they had not behaved themselves on the last night. 
It has been very interesting to see, when we reopened our 
room at the end of this week, this crowd of fellows, 
within ten minutes, coming from this whole district. 
We went down there while the room was closed, and 
there was not a sign that we had any constituency at all. 
One would have said, u Now by your foolishness in 
maintaining your discipline you have lost your crowd." 
In ten minutes after we had reopened the room, the same 
old crowd has been there, and they have always come in 
in a kind of apologetic way, as much as to say, " We 
will be good if you will only let us stay." 

Now, each one of these places has had, as its next-door 
neighbor and its opposite neighbors, the saloon ; and as 
long as these fellows have stayed in our rooms they have 
not been in the saloon ; and as long as we have made 
them feel that there was good-will on our part, which led 
us- to establish institutions of this kind that have been 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON". 145 

truly benevolent institutions, we have been able to call 
upon the public and say, " Here is this chance of contact 
with these fellows, who are so far away from you. Come 
down and talk to them, sing to them, show them pic- 
tures ; do anything which would interest your friends in 
your own parlor ; and we will assure you that you will 
have an interested audience. " And the result has proved 
that we were right. And besides that, these men have 
themselves asked to be allowed to come in on Sunday 
afternoons, and they have given us a chance for a Tem- 
perance meeting, and there have been a great many in- 
cidents to show us that we were working in the Lord's 
vineyard, and that the motive that lies down at the base 
of all such work is the religious motive. 

Mr. L. A. Maynard, of New York, read the following 
paper : 

The Social Side op the Saloon Problem. 

I am a firm believer in Total Abstinence and in Prohi- 
bition — Total Abstinence for the individual and Prohi- 
bition for the State. I believe that the end and aim of 
all true Temperance work must be the complete abolition 
of the traffic in strong drink. A Temperance reform 
movement that stopped at anything short of this would 
be, in my opinion, a foredoomed failure. But I am not 
here this afternoon to talk about Prohibition. There are 
many roads that lead to this Rome of ours, and one of 
them, as I believe, lies by the way of that institution 
which we call the Coffee-House. 

The term " Coffee-House,' ' I wish to say at this point, 
expresses but imperfectly the reformatory ideas of those 
who are engaged in its promotion. The beverage de- 
rived from the coffee plant plays only a small and inci- 
dental part in the institution which bears its name. The 
Coffee-House, or coffee tavern, is only another form for 



146 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

the same idea which finds expression in the cocoa rooms 
of London and other English cities, and also, in a larger 
way, in the People's Palaces, which have recently been 
erected in the tenement districts of the English metrop- 
olis. The idea in all these institutions is to furnish to 
the poorer and lower classes means of innocent enjoyment 
and recreation, places for the refreshment of mind and 
body, where the refreshment is not made contingent upon 
evil indulgence. They go upon the assumption that the 
poor man as well as the rich man, the lowest as well as 
the highest, have certain social impulses and longings, 
not bad in themselves, but so strong and commanding in 
their nature that, unless acting under favoring condi- 
tions, they are quite certain to draw men into evil asso- 
ciations and vicious companionships. It is proposed in 
the Coffee-IIouse to furnish a means whereby these im- 
pulses and longings can be satisfied without the accom- 
paniments of vice and impurity which are inevitable in 
the saloon. 

One of the chief objects of this National Congress, as 
I understand them, is to consider the most immediate 
and practical remedies for the evils of intemperance, and 
to arrive at some agreement among ourselves, if possible, 
as to the best lines of action to pursue in the application 
of these remedies. In the Coffee-House we have one 
remedy that is immediate and eminently practical, and 
one line of action on which we shall find it easy to agree. 
No matter how diverse our views may be on the points 
of Moral Suasion, High License and Prohibition, we can 
all clasp hands over this question of the necessity of de- 
vising something to offset the saloon in its particular 
character as a place of social resort for the masses. This 
necessity presents itself most strongly in our cities and 
large towns, but the necessity exists to a greater or less 
extent in almost every centre of population. 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. 147 

I have given considerable time and thought in the last 
few years to the study of the liquor problem in the city 
of New York, and the more I study it the more firm be- 
comes my conviction of the absolute, the imperative ne- 
cessity of establishing a class of institutions here that 
shall meet and offset the saloons in their capacity of 
places of social rendezvous. Something of this kind 
must be done, if we are ever to shake off the grip which 
the saloons have upon our people. No matter what laws 
against the Liquor Traffic we put upon our statute books, 
the need of such institutions as the Coffee House will 
continue to exist. We may succeed after a time in 
abolishing the dram-shops, but we shall never abolish 
the social instincts and desires of men. Prohibition will 
reduce poverty, I believe, in a wonderful degree, but it 
will not provide every man with a home and cheerful 
companionship. As strongly as I believe in the princi- 
ple of Prohibition, the enforcement of a prohibitory law 
is to me practically unthinkable in a city situated just as 
New York is to-day, with its vast multitudes living under 
the conditions in which we find them here. Before the 
enforcement of such a law is brought within the range of 
possibility we must substitute something for the saloon 
in its character as " the poor man's club-house ;" we 
must make the existence of the grog-shop in any capaci- 
ty wholly without justification or excuse. 

NOT AN APOLOGY FOB THE SALOON. 

I would not stand here as a defender or an apologist 
of the saloon in any sense. God knows that I hate the 
grog-shop, and that I have reason to hate it with a con- 
suming hatred. I cannot believe, however, that the 
existence of nearly ten thousand saloons in the city of 
New York can be accounted for w T holly on the ground of 
the perverted and depraved appetites of men. I cannot 



148 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

believe that these institutions, equalling in number al- 
most all other business places in the city, have no other 
reason for being than that of catering to the appetite for 
strong drink. They must have some other elements of 
power and of popularity. I have faith enough to believe 
that there are thousands of poor but honest and well- 
meaning men in all our large cities who become regular 
frequenters and patrons of the saloons, not in the begin- 
ning because of a depraved appetite, or because the as- 
sociations of these places were particularly congenial, 
not because they would not have preferred cleaner, 
purer, and more wholesome surroundings, but because 
there were no places other than the saloons open to 
them, because they had no alternative except the open 
street or the squalid, cheerless, and forbidding surround- 
ings of a tenement room.. If you were poor, if you were 
a stranger and friendless, you might walk for miles and 
miles on the streets of this city to-day, and never find a 
door open to welcome you in except the doors of the 
gin-palaces, or the doors of other resorts worse even than 
these. If you were overcome with the cold of winter or 
the heat of summer, if you were weary with the noise and 
the dust of the streets, there would be nothing for you 
to do but to sit down on the curbstone — or enter a sa- 
loon. You would have no trouble in finding one of 
these places anywhere, and you would be welcome to rest 
there as long as you pleased, provided you patronized 
the bar and did not object to the company in which you 
found yourself. 

THE ACTUAL CONDITIONS OF THE CASE. 

I wish I had the power to place before you this after- 
noon a true and living picture of the actual conditions 
under which tens of thousands of men and women are 
living in this city to-day — the people of the tenement 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. 149 

districts, of the dives and the slums. Make a tour for 
yourself one of these sweltering summer days now upon 
us down there in the region of the Bend in Mulberry 
Street, and you will wonder, as I often do, how poor hu- 
manity can bear up under such awful burdens of misery 
and wretchedness, and sin and woe. What is there here 
that makes life endurable even to the lowest and most 
depraved ? The narrow, dirty streets, with never a 
breath of God's fresh air in them or about them the year 
round, the pavements hot and blistering, the air like a 
blast from an oven, and rank with the foulest of odors, 
nothing to be seen anywhere to right or left, above or 
below, but staring brick and wooden walls, and burning 
flag-stones and filthy gutters, and ragged, wretched, woe- 
begone people. Along these streets are the great tene- 
ments and cheap lodging-houses, vast swarming hives of 
human beings — squalid, cheerless, desolate, with nothing 
in them or about them that is not suggestive of discom- 
fort, unrest, suffering, and disease. In surroundings like 
these, thousands of our fellow-beings, men and women of 
like flesh and blood as ourselves, live all through the 
little circle of their lives, marrying and giving in mar- 
riage, rearing their families, dying at last without ever 
having known, many of them, what it was to have a 
waking hour of real peace or joy or comfort. When I 
think of these things, how the poor people of the tene- 
ments live from day to day, what their surroundings are, 
and what the influences that mould their lives, I wonder 
not that so many of them become inmates of our prisons, 
asylums, and workhouses, criminals, vagrants, and pau- 
pers, but that all of them are not incarnate fiends ; that 
in all this atmosphere of sin and vice a single flower of 
sweetness and purity can grow ; that anywhere here can 
be found such things as honesty, self-respect, pure 
womanhood or true manhood. 



150 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

It is in regions such as these that we find the dram- 
shop most abounding. The necessities of these people 
are the saloon's opportunities. The dram-shop comes in 
to supply a place in the lives of these men and women of 
the tenements which nothing else, God forgive us, is 
there to fill. The saloon is there always — the ever- 
present, ever-open, ever-ready saloon — saloons on every 
corner, saloons on the right, saloons on the left, above 
ground and below ground, everywhere, everywhere, the 
sign of Gambrinus, the swinging green doors, and the 
foaming beer-mug ! 

THE SALOON'S ATTRACTIVE POWER. 

The saloons have been called " the poor man's club- 
houses," and the term is not without appropriateness. 
They are far more cheerful and attractive in their inte- 
riors than most of the tenement homes around them. 
They can afford more brightness and elegance, for they 
get all the money there is floating about, and the tene- 
ments have none. Some of the dram shops in the poorest 
districts are palaces in their way, with stained windows, 
polished furniture, flashing mirrors, bright pictures on 
the wall and cut-glass bottles behind the bar. Oh, yes ! 
they are gorgeous places, some of them, with their music 
and dancing, their free-lunch counters, their warmth in 
winter time and their coolness in the summer season, 
and withal their sleek, smiling, and bediamonded bar- 
keepers, and their boisterous, jolly, happy-go-lucky 
crowds. And every one is welcome in these places — that 
is, if he has a little money, will treat occasionally, 
and get drunk as often as possible. The poor, friendless 
young man whose only retreat at night is a narrow cot in 
a cheap lodging-house, and other men, married and 
single, young and old, whose only homes are the close, 
narrow, dirty, and overcrowded tenement rooms — all 



WEDNESDAY AFTERXOOK. 151 

these are welcome in the saloons ; welcome to look at 
the mirrois and the pictures, to hear the music and listen 
to the talk — all this at the price of their manhood, their 
self-respect, their bodies and their souls. It is a terrible 
price to pay for a few fleeting joys, but, Heaven help 
them, I fear that many of us would do the same under 
similar circumstances. If I had no other home at night 
but a four by seven room in a big tenement, and never a 
soul to speak to out of work hours, and nothing in the 
summer but Croton water to drink, and ice a cent a 
pound, I do not know but that I would go to a saloon, 
too. I am afraid I would. 

A great number of men and women who live in these 
districts are drunkards, hopeless, wretched, abandoned 
sots. Yes, of course they are ! I wonder that all of 
them are not that way. Many of them were born of 
drunken mothers, and have lived over the fumes of beer 
barrels from their infancy. They beat and tear one an- 
other, too, like wild beasts ; they starve their children ; 
they steal and murder and prey upon each other like 
wolves. Yes, of course they do ! They were greeted 
with a curse when they came into the world, and they 
have dealt in curses ever since. 

WHAT SHALL BE DONE ? 

What shall we do for people living under these condi- 
tions ? What shall we do to save them from becoming 
drunkards, thieves, outlaws, vagrants ? I tell you what 
I would do if I had enough power and enough money. 
I would go down in the regions of Mulberry Street and 
the East Side, and buy up and clear away some of the 
tenements and filthy lodging-houses, and I would build 
in their places some " People's Palaces," like those they 
are putting up now in the East End of London, great 
structures wherein should be found everything that 



152 STATIOHAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

could minister to the true and higher needs of these peo- 
ple, everything calculated to draw out their best natures, 
to stir up bright hopes and true ambitions. I would 
have lecture-rooms, reading-rooms, libraries, gymna- 
siums, free baths, concert-halls, night-schools, refresh- 
ment-rooms, winter-gardens and picture-galleries. I 
would throw open the doors and invite these people in 
with their wives and families. I would try and teach 
them in indirect ways that there is something better and 
more desirable in this world than bar-rooms and beer- 
mugs, dives and dance-houses. At the same time, I 
would go down there in the Bowery and the region 
round about and buy up some of the corner saloons, the 
worst and the most gorgeous ones I could find. I would 
do this quietly, and I would not change these places very 
much except in their interiors. If I found that there 
was any drawing power in green doors and hurdy- 
gurdies and free-lunch counters, I would retain them. 
I would try and draw in all their old customers that I 
could, but I would fill them up with something better 
than liquid damnation when they were once inside. I 
would run these places on strictly business principles, 
clean, honest, and square. I would keep my philan- 
thropy, religious zeal, and Temperance principles in the 
background, where they could be felt, but not heard or 
seen. I would have no Scripture texts on the walls, but 
I would do what is better, I would put the spirit of the 
Scriptures into my work. I would not draw the lines so 
strictly as to keep out the very class I most desired to 
reach. I would allow just as much freedom as I possi- 
bly could, consistently with decency, order, and good 
morals. I would supply the bar-rooms with all manner 
of refreshing, invigorating, healthful drinks, all that 
cheer but do not inebriate, at a price which would leave 
a small margin of profit. I would have tables and coun- 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. 153 

ters for eating, furnished with a variety of wholesome, 
seasonable, well-cooked food, hot and cold, at the low- 
est prices. I would have a reading-room and a room 
furnished with innocent games, where every person who 
behaved himself would be welcome to come, whether he 
patronized my lunch-counters or not. I would have 
bath-rooms and dormitories open to all at nominal rates. 
I would try and open a trade with the poor people of the 
neighborhood in soups and stews and good hot coffee, 
which they could carry home by the pailful if they 
wanted to. If they wanted to " rush the growler" as 
they do now, I would help them rush it, only I would 
fill the growler up with something better and more 
nourishing than ale or beer. 1 would keep these places 
just as neat and bright and cheerful as I possibly could, 
but I would not have them so elegant as to make poor 
men uncomfortable. I would have polite, obliging, kind- 
hearted, clean-mouthed men and women as attendants, 
but I would have them attend strictly to business, and 
not be intrusive with their piety and Temperance princi- 
ples. I would have them live these things, and not talk 
them. 

These are some of the things I would do for the cause 
of Temperance in New York City if I had the power and 
the money. And if I had enough power and enough 
money I would start at least five hundred of these Coffee- 
Houses between the Battery and Harlem River in the 
next year. I have not a particle of doubt that under 
right management every one of them would be success- 
ful, and ultimately pay a fair rate of interest on the in- 
vestment. 

THE ENGLISH COFFEE-HOUSE SYSTEM. 

We have only to look across the water to Mother Eng- 
land to see a Coffee-House system in full and practical 



154 ffATIOKAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

operation, fully justifying all that is claimed for it as an 
antidote for the evils of intemperance. I have had an 
extensive correspondence with the English Coffee-House 
authorities, and am prepared, if necessary, to demon- 
strate with facts and figures the wonderful success which 
has attended the operation of these institutions in that 
country. I wish I had time to read to you some extracts 
from the proceedings of the Seventh Annual National 
Coffee Tavern Conference held last month in Manchester, 
as I find them reported in the Temperance Caterer of Lon- 
don. You would learn from these proceedings that the 
Coffee-House has become an institution of the highest 
commercial as well as philanthropic importance in Eng- 
land, that its extension and development are engaging 
many of the first minds of the United Kingdom. The 
President of the National Coffee Tavern Association last 
year was the Rev. J. J. Stewart Perowne, Dean of Peter- 
borough. Last month Sir John J. Harwood was elected 
president for the ensuing year. In the long list of dele- 
gates to the conference I see the names of men known on 
both sides of the Atlantic, noblemen, mayors of cities, 
high ecclesiastics, and representatives of all the learned 
professions and the higher class of trades. I see that 
the movement in England has the active sympathy and 
support of such men as Mr. Gladstone, Cardinal Man- 
ning, John Morley, and others of equal eminence. A re- 
formatory movement which has such an endorsement as 
this surely deserves our serious consideration. 

THE RESULT IN ENGLAND. 

I have recently been asking some of the leading Coffee- 
House men in England and elsewhere for specific infor- 
mation on the point of the actual results of the Coffee- 
House movement in diminishing the evils of intemper- 
ance. The answers I have received have been most grati- 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. 155 

fying. Mr. H. A. Short, Honorary Secretary of the Na- 
tional Coffee Tavern Association of Great Britain, writes 
as follows : u Let me assure you of the utility and accepta- 
bility of our movement in these islands, that the testi- 
mony of men in responsible public positions is, with 
scarcely an exception (I never knew an exception), em- 
phatically favorable to the coffee tavern as a counteract- 
ing and educational institution. We both win from the 
saloon and interpose before the victims are drawn thither. 
Of course your habits are not quite as ours are ; and it 
will be necessary to adapt them to American and not 
English usages. But provide for the thirst and refresh- 
ment of the people ; do it well ; sell nothing but what 
is wholesome and of good quality ; maintain sound busi- 
ness methods ; be sure to put the right people to manage 
and to serve ; be enthusiastic, but use all right care ; 
and in a few years we will be coming to America to learn 
how to perfect the coffee tavern." 

In another place, speaking to the same point, Mr. 
Short says, " To the inquiry, ' Has the coffee tavern 
movement realized the hopes of its founders and proved 
a successful aid to Temperance ? ' the answer must be an 
emphatic affirmative. Of course, individual cases to 
the contrary may be cited, for what good thing has 
not its spurious imitations ? And it must be allowed 
that perfection is not yet reached. But this much is 
fairly demonstrated, that the liquor-shop is no longer the 
sole refuge of the worker and the wayfarer from hunger, 
thirst, and exposure. A choice has been offered be- 
tween dram-drinking and wholesome refreshment, and 
multitudes who have chosen the latter have found the 
whole course of their lives improved and elevated there- 
by. They have found it not only possible, but prefer- 
able to live and work without intoxicants. The advan- 
tage has come all unconsciously to some ; while many 



156 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

others have hailed the coffee tavern movement as a ha- 
ven of safety from the allurements of the drinking sa- 
loon." 

I have also received the following letter dated at To- 
ronto, Canada, May 28th, from Mr. Lee Williams, Secre- 
tary and Treasurer of the Toronto Coffee-House Associa- 
tion : 

Dear Sir : I am in receipt of your letter of inquiry. 
We have established the following facts here : 

1. That the eating-house business can be carried on 
profitably at moderate charges without the help of the 
profits of the bar-room. 

2. That it is an advantage to the young man and those 
addicted to drink to be able to obtain meals at places 
where " no liquor is sold.*' 

3. That a large percentage of the eating-house business 
in this city is now in the hands of those who conduct 
their places on Temperance principles, encouraged by the 
Coffee-House enterprise. 

4. We are confident that the influence of our Coffee- 
Houses toward Temperance is very large. 

I might offer much other testimony from various 
sources to the same effect, but I think enough has been 
said to establish the point that the Coffee-House is a 
practical success in other countries as a counteractive of 
the saloons. 

A SUCCESS HERE ALSO. 

If the Coffee-House system has been so successful in 
England and Canada, there is no reason why it should 
not be successful here. Allowances would have to be 
made, of course, for the differences in our habits, social 
customs, and surroundings, but these differences are not 
so great between us and the countries named as to add 
any serious complications to the problem. Our gin- 
shops are very much the same as the gin-shops of Eng- 
land, just as alluring and just as dangerous. Our poorer 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. 157 

classes have the same temptations, the same influences 
working against them, the same social desires and in- 
stincts as the poorer classes of England, and they need 
the same kind of help and sympathy. It is true that 
Coffee-Houses may now be found in some of the cities 
and towns of the United States. New York City has 
two Coffee-Houses, one opposite Bellevue Hospital, on 
Twenty-sixth Street, established years ago by the New 
York Fruit and Bible Mission, and another recently 
opened on Twenty -third Street, under the patronage of 
a philanthropic lady whose name is unknown. These 
institutions are doing good work and furnishing practi- 
cal and abundant illustrations of the value of the Coffee- 
House system. But their number is wholly inadequate 
to the needs of the situation, and none of them come up 
fully to the idea of the Coffee House as a counteractive 
agency of the saloon. 

Several attempts have been made in New York in the 
past seven or eight years to establish a system of Coffee- 
Houses on a large and extensive scale. Mr. Robert Gra- 
ham, the energetic and indefatigable Secretary of the 
Church Temperance Society, who has a larger and more 
intimate knowledge of Coffee-House work than any other 
man in the country, has furnished the chief inspiration 
for the movement here, and it is mainly through his 
efforts that several houses have been established in dif- 
ferent parts of the country, and that public interest has 
been kept upon the subject. The efforts made here in 
New York have been sustained by earnest and practical 
men, but they have not succeeded, simply for the reason 
that the requisite amount of capital has never yet been 
forthcoming. At least $100,000 is needed to give the 
Coffee-House movement a fair start in this city. 

I do not know how many millionaires there are within 
the sound of my voice to-day, but if there are any I want 



158 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

to tell them how they can immortalize themselves and 
make from eight to ten per cent on their investment at 
the same time. They can do it by furnishing sufficient 
capital for the establishment of Coffee-Houses here in 
New York. They are not asked to give away this money, 
they are asked simply to invest it in an enterprise which 
will yield a profit not only in cash dividends, but in 
dividends of saved men and women. The man or men 
who will undertake this enterprise will find everything 
ready to their hands. Mr. Robert Graham has some ex- 
cellent plans for Coffee-Houses in his possession, and also 
a large fund of sound ideas and practical experience in 
this work, which I am sure he will put at the disposal of 
any one who makes a genuine demand for them. And 
if anything more of this kind is needed, Mr. William 
Abbatt and others of us who have been working over 
this problem for years past will furnish more ideas and 
more enthusiasm. We have some excellent sites for 
Coffee-Houses already selected too, and, in fact, we have 
everything to start the Coffee-Houses except the money. 
We are seriously short at that point, but that is not our 
fault. Where is the man who will come forward and 
supply the missing link in our chain of reform ? If he 
will announce himself here we shall all rise up and call 
him blessed. 

AN IMMEDIATE REMEDY. 

One reason why I favor the establishment of a Coffee- 
House system is because of the immediateness of the 
remedy which it offers for the evils of intemperance in 
our large cities. I believe, as I have said, that the cause 
of Prohibition will triumph some day everywhere, that 
the time will come when the saloon and all its vile ac- 
companiments will be things of the past ; but in our large 
cities that happy day is yet far away. Prohibition with 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. 159 

us here in the metropolis, at least, must be a thing of 
slow growth. It will take many years, I fear, of earnest, 
persistent, self-denying labor to bring about the blessed 
consummation. In the mean while, the duty is upon us 
of using every available means to mitigate the evils 
which we have not the power, at present, to abolish. 
Here we have before us the terrible facts : A city with 
ten thousand grog-shops, ten thousand drunkard mills 
grinding out daily their awful grists of sin and misery, 
woe and shame ; a city full of drunkards' homes, starv- 
ing children, and heart-broken wives and mothers ; a 
city with the saloon enthroned in its highest places, de- 
fiant, aggressive, arrogant, conscious of its power, and 
stopping at nothing, foul or fair, to gain its ends and 
perpetuate its existence. What shall we do about it ? 
Shall we sit down and wait for some law to come along, 
that shall help us to crush this hellish traffic into the 
earth ? Let us do what we can to hurry the law along, 
but let us not rest ourselves upon that. While we are 
waiting, thousands of the young and the innocent, the 
weak and the tempted, the poor and the friendless, are 
being drawn into the maelstrom of the drink curse, 
going out and beyond the reach of our pitying and help- 
ing hands. Oh, it seems to me that if I could voice the 
cry that is going up this afternoon from the hearts of the 
wives and mothers in the thousand drunkard homes in 
this city, it would be, " Help us now ; come and help us 
now, before it is too late, too late !" " Save my boy, 
save my husband !" " Save them from vile companions, 
save them from the evil associations of the saloons I' 1 
Shall we not heed this cry by doing what we can to 
throw around the boys and the young men, the hus- 
bands and the fathers, a purer social atmosphere, bet- 
ter associations, and more helpful and refining influ- 
ences ? 



160 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

Mrs. E. D. C. Mair, Superintendent of the Alleghany 
Holly Tree Inn, said : 

It shall only be a very few moments, dear friends. 
But as my brother who has so eloquently preceded me 
has been telling of all the pain and all the loneliness and 
the desolation, I remembered so well reading just two 
lines, some years ago, in the Union Signal, which said 
that a young man had made the remark that there was 
no place in that city where he could enter an open 
door or have a welcome, except in a saloon. As I read 
it, I reflected that that might echo from the Pacific to 
the Atlantic. And so, dear friends, you who are women, 
and you who have the desire to do something for the 
blessed Christ, to save those who are going down into 
the depths of a drunkard's eternity, just take pity on 
this young man and thousands of others like him, and 
do something, as our brother has suggested. 

I was very happy, during seven years, to preside at a 
Coffee-House in Alleghany City. The Holly Tree be- 
came very dear to me, because it was the scene of con- 
stant effort for those who came, and, I also believe, of 
great spiritual benefit. We had, as our brother has de- 
picted, the free lunch. We gave to those who had no 
money to pay for it ; but constantly the coffee was hot, 
the soup was there ready, and at the least possible 
nominal price we just gave freely to all who came. But 
it was not only for the drunkards nor for the shoeblacks ; 
sisters dear, it was for the poor girls — some of the girls 
who had been tempted because at some deadly dance 
they had taken their first glass of wine, or at some ill- 
fated picnic they had taken their first drink of beer ; and 
only God knows how^ with tears and with moans unut- 
terable, they had gone down and down into nameless 
depths. God used the place wonderfully for the salva- 
tion of sinners, and day after day, dear ones, we saw so 



WEDNESDAY EVENING. 161 

many coming to Christ, some not staying so very long ; 
and some, perhaps, might have looked at us and said, 
" Has it been of much use ?" But you know, as Faber 
says, " It is always a glorious triumph even to work for 
God." And there we saw, exceeding abundantly, the 
Holy Spirit poured out into lonely, desolate hearts and 
lives. We had, in connection with it, a Women's Chris- 
tian Temperance Union employment office, where many 
and many came to find honest labor, both men and 
women. We also had a Bible class on Sunday afternoon, 
and an open Gospel Temperance meeting in the evening ; 
and from it sprang a Young Men's Christian Temperance 
League that did valiant service in the cities for seven or 
eight years. Circumstances closed up the work. But it 
was a good work. It was God's work. It was needed 
work. It was Temperance work. 

Mr. Graham said : 

A little less than a year ago a very generous-minded 
lady of this city established a Coffee-House at No. 338 
East Twenty-third Street, and fitted it up as handsomely 
as it could be fitted up. It is as comfortable a place as 
ever I was in. If any of those interested in the work of 
Temperance reform care to go down to that Coffee-House, 
she would be glad to have them come down and look 
over its fixings. 

WEDNESDAY EVENING. 

The session was opened with prayer by Bishop Edward 
G. Andrews, and the hymn " America" was sung. 

The President : It gives me pleasure to announce that 
this evening's session of the Congress will have for its 
president that gallant soldier and that good citizen, 
General Wager Swayne, whom we have the pleasure of 
presenting to you. 



162 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

General Swayne, upon taking the chair, said : 
Ladies and Gentlemen : I am disposed to congratulate 
you and to congratulate myself upon the particular topic 
which is this evening before us for consideration. With 
singular aptness, as I understand it, although doubtless 
without design, our beautiful singers have this evening 
opened these exercises with the hymn " America." 
There is no feature of our America of larger consequence 
or more vital interest to everybody in it than the Su- 
preme Court of the United States. If this evening's en- 
tertainment and interest shall have no other or larger 
result than to make plainer to us than it has been here- 
tofore the relations which the Supreme Court of the 
United States sustains to the several States and to their 
various interests and traffic, we shall nevertheless go 
away, most of us, highly profited and better Americans 
by that result. If, in addition to that, the discourse of 
this evening shall enhance our respect and our apprecia- 
tion, and the value with which we cherish that Supreme 
Court, then our country also will be the gainer in the rela- 
tion which we sustain to its chief executive in the matter 
of the laws, and to one of its three fundamental depart- 
ments of administration. 

But beyond and underlying and overlying these con- 
siderations, this theme comes home to me with a keen 
sense of appreciation and pleasure, which I think I may 
rightly invite you to share with me, and may appropri- 
ately speak of, for the reason that it arises out of a rela- 
tion which is common to us all. It is not often that a 
little thing occurs that is pleasanter to me than when my 
good friend Dr. Funk met me, as I stepped upon this 
platform, to bid me God-speed and ask me, when I came 
to this table, to try to make myself plain ; that is, to 
make plain, in a word, where I stood. Now, in New 
York here, you all know Dr. Funk. You all know the 



WEDNESDAY EVENING. 163 

magnificent work at the head of which he stands, and 
the magnificent way in which he carries that work on. 
Possibly, as President of the Ohio Society of New York, 
I might not inappropriately remark that it is a sort of 
Ohio idea to carry things on in that way. I had a 
curious illustration of it the other night. I was invited 
to a rather distinguished gathering — a banquet given to 
the Hon. "Whitclaw Reid ; and after Mr. Reid had ex- 
pressed himself as Minister to France, the chairman 
turned to the gentleman on his left and introduced the 
Hon. Calvin S. Brice, now of the United States Senate, 
from Ohio. Then he did me the kindness to call me up.; 
and when he had got through with me it occurred to 
him he had had about enough Ohio men, so he said he 
would go away down to the other end of the table and 
call up a gentleman from Texas, which he did ; and 
when the distinguished editor of the Texas Sif tings got 
up and began his remarks, u When I began life on my 
father's farm in Tuscarawas County, Ohio,'" 1 you can see 
there was a joke in it. 

But, quite aside from that, here has been Dr. Funk, 
carrying on this magnificent work with which we are 
familiar, and here have been men like Dr. Howard Cros- 
by, like my excellent friend, Mr. Graham, like Albert 
Griffin, whom I knew thirty years ago nearly, when the 
fires of slavery were still smoking and still hot enough to 
grill a man if he should be among them ; and I knew 
him down on the Gulf, suffering obloquy and ostracism 
for the right, and I have known him ever since, giving 
his whole life in that way. Here have been men like 
these, working on a different programme. Sometimes 
we have misunderstood each other. Nobody could mis- 
understand Dr. Funk. Nobody could misunderstand 
Dr. Crosby. But sometimes we haven't all of us realized 
that lesson that comes by and by to be burned into every 



164 XATIO^AL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

one of us whose experience is at all sharp, or at all hard, 
or at all broad ; that is, that the truth is larger than 
that any man can see all sides of it. And so we have 
not always appreciated one another. We have been in 
need of that beautiful sentiment with which that book 
of " Little Lord Fauntleroy" closes, where you know 
the old earl appeals to his daughter-in-law to come and 
live with them, and she turns to him and says, i l Sir, are 
you quite sure that you want me V and the old earl 
says, u Madam, we have always wanted you, but we 
were not always exactly aware of it." So you see, la- 
dies and gentlemen, that here have been men equally 
earnest, equally devoted, equally laborious, equally self- 
sacrificing, to whom it would cause not the least change 
of personal habit, not the least sacrifice of personal in- 
terest, to come to absolute accord throughout, and yet 
who have not always realized that we wanted one an- 
other. Can't you understand now what it meant to me 
to be greeted here by Dr. Funk and come upon this 
platform, where, for the first time in all this Temperance 
agitation, I have known men of all shades of opinion 
recognizing one another as children of the same God, 
speaking by the same voice, asking for the same wis- 
dom, that the grace of God might enable us to fulfil 
those words of our dear Lord, u By this shall all men 
know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to 
another"? 

The topic for discussion was : 

The Bearing on the Temperance Reform of the 
Unbroken Package Decision of the Supreme 
Court. 

The paper contributed to this discussion by Hon. C. 
C. Bonney, of Chicago, was read at the session of Thurs- 
day afternoon, and will be found on page.) 



WEDNESDAY EVENING. 165 

Hon. Walter B. Hill, of Georgia, spoke as follows : 

An accurate legal statement of the decision of the Su- 
preme Court in the " Original Package" cases will be 
found in the able paper prepared by Judge Bonney. 
But it will be useful to take account of that decision 
not with reference to its precise legal limitations and 
qualifications, but with reference to the large and gen- 
eral impression which it has made and will continue to 
make upon the mind of the public, unaccustomed to 
legal distinctions. 

Robert Toombs never said that he would some day 
call the roll of his slaves on Bunker Hill. But he might 
as well have said it. It was characteristic, though it 
was not true ; and the error that attributes the saying to 
him is one that easily lives on. 

Chief Justice Taney did not say in the Dred Scott 
Case that a negro had no rights that a white man was 
bound to respect. But so far as the result to the ques- 
tion of slavery was concerned, he might as well have 
said it. A few discriminating people know better ; but 
the world connects the saying with his name. And the 
error is easy to perpetuate, because the scope of a deci- 
sion, as understood by the general public, is not in the 
ruling itself, but in its trend and its bearings. 

So the Supreme Court, speaking by two-thirds of its 
judges, have not said in the terms of their decision, but 
they might as well have said — they are understood by 
the great public, unfamiliar with legal distinctions, to 
have said — and considering how extensively State bor- 
ders are intersected by inter-State transportation lines, 
and how easily " original package" shops may be turned 
into saloons in violation of either prohibitory or license 
laws — they have virtually said, I think, in the practical 
results of the decision, that State and communities have 
no rights that the liquor dealers of other States are bound 



166 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

to respect, No wonder that a decision presenting itself 
naturally in that form to the popular mind has stirred 
this nation as it has not been stirred since the firing of 
the shot that was heard around the world. No wonder 
that in the South, where the rights of the States are most 
cherished, the decision has been received with profound 
discontent and alarm. No wonder that the leading 
Southern Democratic newspaper has declared that it i3 
the most radical single revolution ever wrought in the 
structure of the Government ! No wonder that even a 
Kepublican delegate to this Congress should have de- 
clared that he wanted to see the heel of the general 
Government lifted from the neck of the prostrate States I 

Pascal uttered a truth for all time and for all realms of 
thought when he said, " Unity without variety is tyr- 
anny ; variety without unity is confusion." Applying 
the statement to government, the tyranny of the former 
is in centralization ; the confusion of the latter was in 
secession, which, had it prevailed, would have broken 
up this great nation into asteroids of inferior magnitude. 
But the golden mean between the two extremes — the 
unity in variety — is that indestructible union of inde- 
structible States guaranteed by the Constitution, as set- 
tled by the results of the war and construed by the de- 
cisions of the Federal Supreme Court. But is any State 
44 indestructible" that is powerless to protect itself 
wholly by Prohibition or partially by restrictive License 
against foreign agencies which the sovereign people 
have adjudged to be destructive to the State and have 
outlawed from its borders ? If they be left so shorn of 
power, then, in the words of Prentiss, we may strike 
from the flag the stars that glitter to the name of States, 
but leave the stripes behind — a fit emblem of their im- 
potence and degradation. 

Observe, if you please, that I do not assume to criti- 



WEDNESDAY EVENING. 167 

cise the law of the decision. I accept it loyally as the 
law of the land, emanating from the " living voice of the 
Constitution." It is the judgment of the greatest and 
most august tribunal ever constituted in the history of 
mankind or now existing upon the face of the earth. 
Its exalted learning, its complete independence, place it 
above suspicion or reproach. Never before in any hu- 
man tribunal have the probabilities of error been reduced 
so completely to a minimum as in that court, by the 
greatness of its judges, their disinterestedness, their 
probity, their patient deliberation. It must be remem- 
bered that the judges cannot take into account or be 
governed by their moral predilections. The court has 
but one function : to declare what the law is as it is 
found in Constitution, statute, and precedent. While 
one's personal opinion is of little consequence in re- 
lation to the decision of this great court, yet this de- 
cision seems to me to be the inevitable result from the 
case of Bowman against the Chicago and Northwestern 
Railway Company, decided about three years ago. I said 
then in a published speech that the decision followed to 
its logical consequences would result in the practical 
nullification of State prohibitory laws, so far as they 
affected intoxicating liquors shipped across State lines ; 
and I assigned it as one of the reasons for my adhesion, 
in the campaign of 1888, to the movement for National 
agitation. 

The decision is made ; there is no probability that it 
will be reconsidered or reversed. What is its bearing on 
the Temperance Reform ? 

I have only one point to stress. It makes that reform, 
if it never was so before, unmistakably a national 
question ; if it was so before, it makes it more clearly 
and conspicuously a national question. To meet the ex- 
igency created by the decision and by the rush which 



168 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGBESS. 

the liquor-dealers have made to set up " original pack- 
age" shops, Congress must act. 

Congress may act by declaring that inter-State com- 
merce in intoxicating liquors shall be subject to the po- 
lice regulations of the States. A bill having this pur- 
port — the Wilson Bill — has passed the Senate. 

It ought to pass the House, but I do not believe it 
will. The principle involved has been voted on by the 
House adversely at the present session. An amendment 
to the Army xlppropriation Bill was offered, providing 
that intoxicating liquors should not be sold in the army 
canteens in localities where such sale was forbidden by 
State laws. The House voted the amendment down. 
Besides, the news has just come that strong opposition 
to the Wilson Bill has been developed in the House Ju- 
diciary Committee. 

If the bill does not pass, the enforcement of prohibi- 
tory State laws will be seriously handicapped by the de- 
cision in the Iowa case ; and the restrictions of High 
License laws will be virtually nullified by the decision in 
the Wisconsin case. 

What then ? We must elect a Congress that will 
either make interstate traffic in intoxicating liquors sub- 
ject to the police regulations of the States, or, else and 
better, that will solve the whole problem so far as the 
interstate traffic is concerned by depriving such liquors 
of their ordinary commercial character. 

Under the power to tax, Congress might impose a tax, 
high enough to be prohibitory, upon the manufacture of 
intoxicating liquors in the States for beverage purposes ; 
and under its power over interstate commerce, it might 
limit the traffic in such liquors so that they could only 
be delivered to persons holding authority of a State or 
county to sell them for other than beverage purposes. 

It is true that the police power resides in the plates, 



WEDNESDAY EVEtflKG. 169 

but there is not a single argument against the national 
agitation of the question that does not also demonstrate 
the folly of the Abolitionists in electing Lincoln in 1860. 
We all know how that folly was justified by Providence ! 

The most astonishing of all the objections to national 
prohibitory agitation is that Prohibitionists are in the 
minority. That is, in fact, the very reason for the na- 
tional agitation. If we were a majority, the work would 
be already done. We know that under our American 
system laws can only be enacted and enforced by the 
will of a majority ; and yet, constantly, Prohibition is 
treated as a tyrannical decree which, by some unex- 
plained coup oVetat, the Prohibitionists are to fasten on 
the Republic ! This sort of logic fatigues all patience. 
It is rational to argue against Prohibition, but it is not 
rational to concede either directly or by implication the 
merit of the principle of Prohibition, and then use the 
fact that a majority do not favor it as a reason why a 
majority ought not to favor it, and as a reason why the 
minority should cease their efforts to bring the majority 
to the support of the principle. 

Under the powers already mentioned, and without any 
constitutional amendment, a Congress in sympathy with 
Prohibition might cripple the Liquor Traffic " within an 
inch of its life," and thus make the final work to be 
done by the States easy, speedy, and certain. 

What one Congress may do another may repeal ; and 
thus the whole question is brought into the national 
arena, where it must stay until it is settled, and settled 
right. 

In that aspect of the matter I am inclined to agree 
with Mr. Thoman, the head of the Brewers' Literary 
Bureau, that the decision is a blessing in disguise to the 
Prohibition cause. There have been two occasions this 
year when I have been almost ready to sing the " Nunc 



170 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

Dimittis." One was when Bishop Ireland, who seems to 
me, saving this largely Protestant presence, to have 
framed the most powerful indictments against the Liquor 
Traffic which American eloquence has ever uttered, 
wrote his letter favoring Prohibition in Dakota. The 
other was when Dr. Lyman Abbott, who edits a newspa- 
per that is a favorite of mine (and also, alas ! of my 
liquor-selling friends), declared that no one could any 
longer deny that Prohibition was a national question. 

The decision has proved a blessing in that it is the 
first influence that has brought the advocates of Prohi- 
bition and High License together. While, heretofore, they 
have stood in opposition, they now certainly occupy one 
common ground in fighting the evasions of both meas- 
ures which may result from " original package" shops. 

Having thus been brought into making one common 
cause, the way is opened for further agreement. 

Since this Congress has been called for the purpose of 
bringing together in conference workers in the Temper- 
ance Reform who have hereto labored on different lines, 
I think that all the discussions should be so directed as 
to inform our friends with whom we differ of the 
grounds upon which we object to their methods. 

Unhappily, the issue between Higli License (advocated 
as a restrictive Temperance measure) and Prohibition is 
very sharply drawn, and apparently irreconcilable. It is 
doubtless true, as stated by General Neal Dow this 
morning, that High License is the chief obstruction in 
the path of Prohibition ; and, as stated by Mr. Robert 
Graham, that Prohibition is the chief obstruction in the 
way of High License. 

Mr. Robert Graham, in his argument that " National 
and State Prohibition is not desirable and feasible,' ' 
rested his contention mainly or largely on the ground 
that Prohibition was difficult or impossible to enforce ; 



WEDNESDAY EVENING. 171 

citing instances of the violation of the law in the main- 
tenance of unlicensed saloons. 

But if that argument is decisive against Prohibition, 
he must abandon High License ; for what has he to say 
to the 1500 " speak-easies" in Pittsburgh and the 3000 to 
4000 "speak-easies" in Philadelphia under a rigid High 
License law ? I do not think that society can allow itself 
to be coerced into any policy by lawlessness ; but if it 
be admitted as a ground for the adoption of a social 
policy, then the argument is as fatal to High License as 
to Prohibition. 

Dr. Huntington, in his objection to Prohibition as the 
true policy for our united work, urged the impropriety 
of classifying beer and light wines with distilled liquors. 
This distinction is put forward by many who conjure 
with the potent word " practical" as the true solution 
of the Temperance question. But outside of the propo- 
sition that the indulgence in beer and wine leads (in this 
country at least) to the use of the stronger liquors, how 
can any u practical " man say that it would be possible 
to enforce a law permitting the sale of the former in sa- 
loons and forbidding the sale of the latter ? Until the 
police can be equipped with omniscience and omnipres- 
ence, such a law would be idler than " salvation by 
statute." 

I rejoice in the Supreme Court decision, because I 
think it has in it the seed of a great education for the 
people of the United States. You know that Georgia, 
the State from which I come, has a general Local Option 
law. Once out of 137 counties over 100 had voted for 
Prohibition. I have seen the number of counties gradu- 
ally receding under the influence of that very state of 
things which the Supreme Court decision will bring 
about with reference to the States. The License coun- 
ties, contiguous to the Local Option counties, had the 



172 KATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

power in great measure to discount the value of the 
local Prohibition, The Supreme Court decision virtually 
places all the States in the same situation relatively to 
each other on this question as counties in a State occupy 
to each other ; and without some consistent national 
policy, segregated States cannot protect their police 
regulations against the invasion and interference of con- 
tiguous communities. 

Realizing, in 1888, that neither Local Option nor State 
Option was the final solution of this question, I looked 
and saw the Liquor Traffic entrenched not only in ap- 
petite, not only in avarice, but in national law and na- 
tional politics. I saw that it held the rod of terror over 
the trembling heads of the politicians in both great par- 
ties, and particularly of that to which I belonged. I saw 
that even if non-partisan Temperance sentiment became 
strong enough to emerge into paper platform and paper 
law through these parties, it would meet the fate of the 
Civil Service law, secured by the same sort of pressure, 
and enacted as a statute through the hypocrisy of " the 
homage that vice pays to virtue," and which, ever since, 
has been kicked about as a foot-ball between the par- 
ties, each one charging the other with the hypocrisy of 
which each knows it is guilty. And I saw that if the 
friends of Prohibition should keep their cause out of na- 
tional law and national politics, it would simply leave 
the enemy master of the situation, and would be equiv- 
alent to unconditional surrender ! And so it became 
perfectly clear to me that it was my duty as a citizen to 
leave the Democratic Party and join hands with those 
friends at the North who had left the Republican Party 
and raised the standard of the National Prohibition. 

I rejoice that it is a national question, because it is the 
only national question that has no sectional bearing. It 
is destined to teach the people in Eastern, Northern, 



WEDNESDAY EVENING. 173 

Western, and Southern homes a splendid lesson for this 
needy time — that the virtues that cluster around the fire- 
side are everywhere the same. Love and humanity are the 
same there and here. And when, in the reorganization 
of parties which I believe this National Prohibition issue 
will bring about, those people in the North and in the 
South who would naturally fall into affiliation on social 
and moral lines come together in political relations, and 
when they realize that the same humanity and the same 
Christ are in the hearts of the people of both sections, 
then sectionalism will find its unhonored grave, and a 
truer, nobler patriotism will enter into the nation's 
life. 

Last night I reached your metropolis, travelling alone. 
There is no solitude like the solitude of a stranger in a 
great city. I had no companionship except the thought 
to which I have just given expression ; but as I rode 
from the ferry to my hotel, I counted more than a hun- 
dred saloons, all busy with their deadly work. And as 
I looked upon these and thought of other evidences of 
the enemy's power, to my human vision they seemed 
wholly invincible ; but suddenly I recalled words of 
Henry M. Stanley, in which he tells us how unexpected- 
ly near he was to rescue when his expedition seemed to 
be perishing on the brink of despair : 

" Constrained at the darkest hour to humbly confess 
that without God's help I was helpless, I vowed a vow 
in the forest solitudes that I would confess His aid before 
men. Silence, as of death, was round about me ; it was 
midnight ; I was weakened by illness, prostrated by 
fatigue, and wan with anxiety for my white and black 
companions, whose fate was a mystery. In this physical 
and mental distress I besought God to give me back my 
people. — Nine hours later we were exulting with a rap- 
turous joy. In full view of all was the crimson flag with 



174 KATIOXAL TEMPEBAXCE CONGRESS. 

the crescent, and beneath its waving folds was the long- 
lost rear column.' ' 

So I have but one thought to present to-night. In fif- 
teen minutes, which I expect is nearly gone, there is not 
room for more than one thought, and all that I have said 
has been in the effort to lead up to it. This one point 
would I lay stress upon : That if the Temperance Re- 
form has never before been a national question, it is now 
clearly, unmistakably, and conspicuously a national 
question. 

Rev. A. J. Church, D.D., of Sparkhill, K Y., said : 

I want to say, sir, that the great decision of 1887, an- 
nounced by the United States Supreme Court, covering 
the whole question of the right of a State to prohibit the 
liquor manufacture and traffic, has not been presented 
before us. Such men as General Dow and Dr. Miner, 
and those who have been through the struggle in New 
England, know that it cost us thirty years of hard, dis- 
couraging battle to push our case into court and be 
overruled by a rum-sogged judge. We had Prohibition 
in seventeen States, and it was killed in thirteen of them 
by judges who, I cannot help saying, were influenced by 
political reasons in the decision. Then we went to the 
Supreme Court, and we got partial decision touching this 
question on that form of the great issue. But in De- 
cember, 1887, after the most thorough discussion of the 
whole question that has ever been presented to the Su- 
preme Court, that tribunal — I believe the justest and 
ablest judicial authority on this little planet — decided, by 
a vote of seven to one — almost seven and three quarters 
to a quarter of a man — that the State has a right to put 
down the rum shop and close the brewery and distillery. 

The Chairman : In the absence of General Cary, I am 
requested to invite General 0. O. Howard to address the 

meeting. It gives me singular pleasure to bring General 

J; 



WEDNESDAY EVE^I^G. 175 

Howard to the front, because in times past he used to 
have a singular habit of sending me to the front. 

Dr. Deems : And if he speaks under these circum- 
stances, he will confirm the reputation I gave him the 
other day. When a man asked me what sort of a man 
he was, I told him he was the obligingest man on Gov- 
ernor's Island. 

General Howard spoke as follows : 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends of the 
Congress : I don't think I am capable of talking in this 
place to-night. I am willing to come to the front. I 
believe in Temperance, and I always have ; and I al- 
ways thought that the less liquor, wine, and strong drink 
used, the better, under all circumstances. When I first 
read that decision of the Supreme Court, I was alarmed. 
I did not for an instant suppose that they were influ- 
enced by anything else than conscientious conclusions 
upon the law and the Constitution ; and that is the best 
way to accept such decisions. And we know that when 
the law i3 wrong, Congress will rectify it sooner or later. 
The present Congress may not be able to give an imme- 
diate decision in the light direction. They haven't yet 
found out just what the people want. But if this Con- 
gress doesn't do right, it won't do for an army officer, 
one in the regular service and in the traces, to say much 
about Congress, except in a most respectful manner ; but 
I may say, just about in the same spirit as the decision of 
the Supreme Court, that we have a way in this country, 
if Congress doesn't do what is right, of putting in an- 
other one that will do a little worse, and then get a little 
worse, until it gets so bad that we have to turn around 
and l^ave somebody investigate them, and after a few in- 
vestigations and letting in a little daylight, why, some- 
times even the Government of the city of New York 
changes. Now I do think it is a beautiful thing for you 



176 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS, 

to come together and agitate this subject, and express 
your opinions in this general Congress, because it will 
exert an influence ; and I am very glad that there is some 
one platform upon which all Temperance men can come. 
1 have always thought that if the real Temperance men 
and women in the country would come together and 
voice their sentiments, we might somehow or other pro- 
tect our youth and our children against the constant in- 
vasion of their rights and privileges. 

Dr. Deems : One person is absent who was on the pro- 
gramme on this very important question. When I pre- 
sented General Swayne to be our president, I spoke of 
him as a gallant soldier and a good citizen. I felt, the 
moment I sat down, ' ' You missed it. You should have 
said, 'And a sound lawyer.'' 7 Will you join me in 
requesting the presiding officer of this evening to occupy 
ten minutes in giving us his views as a lawyer upon this 
important case, in the absence of Judge Arnoux ? 

General Swayne said : 

Ladies and Gentlemen : I feel a great deal of diffidence 
in undertaking to do that. Certainly I shall not take 
advantage of such an opportunity to present to you any 
individual views of my own. But I have been personally 
and intimately connected with the Supreme Court of the 
United States for a quarter of a century. I have prac- 
tised constantly before that Court. I have been person- 
ally intimate with the judges of that Court. I have 
talked with some of them about this very decision, and 
I feel strongly that, in order to understand what this de- 
cision is, in its real aspect, you want to consider it for a 
moment entirely apart from any Temperance or other 
question in which you have a personal interest. I, too, 
have seen and watched the rising and the course of these 
decisions, and I will tell you where they start, in my 
mind. They start, in my mind, from a decision which 



*ilV 



WEDNESDAY EVENING. 177 

was rendered a few years ago in a suit against the Wa- 
bash, St. Louis & Pacific Railroad Company, arising out 
of certain contracts for the transportation of wheat. That 
decision you may not know of, but I can assure you it 
convulsed the country in business and transportation cir- 
cles just as much as the u Original Package" decision has 
in circles that are more interested in the Temperance ques- 
tion ; and it led to the immediate enactment of very 
important national legislation. In the case of which I 
speak, certain parties in Illinois made contracts with the 
Wabash Railroad for the transportation of wheat at rates 
which were different from those which were prescribed 
by the Illinois Railroad Commission, and the Wabash 
Railroad Company refused to carry wheat out of Illinois 
or into Illinois at the price which was named by the 
Illinois Railroad Commission. And that case went to 
the Supreme Court of the United States, and it was there 
held, as it had been for fifty years before, that, inasmuch 
as the distinction between the United States and the 
States is this, that the State controls our personal rela- 
tions and our business relations and our family relations, 
that our inter- State relations and our international rela- 
tions are exclusively in charge of the United States. 
That is the distinction. Everything personal to me is 
controlled by the State of New York, and everything 
that concerns my relations with a man in Ohio or a man 
in England is controlled by the United States. And 
consequently the Supreme Court of the United States 
held that, under the Constitution of the United States, 
if a man in Illinois contracted with a railroad company 
to carry corn to a party outside of Illinois, that was a 
matter of interstate relation, to be determined entirely 
by the Congress of the United States, and outside of the 
power of the State of Illinois to regulate in the slightest 
degree. Now that decision led to the immediate passage 



178 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

of the interstate Commerce Law, and to the establish- 
ment of that tribunal and business about which you hear 
so much. 

Now there came before the Supreme Court of the 
United States this question, i i Has the State of Kansas 
power to shut up a brewery without paying for it ?" And 
the Supreme Court of the United States decided, without 
any hesitation at all, that with a man in Kansas and a 
brewery in Kansas the State of Kansas might do just as 
it pleased, exactly ; but when it came to the relation be- 
tween a man in Kansas and a man in Illinois, and a con- 
tract between those two, that the State of Illinois had no 
more power to deal with that relation than it had to do 
with a man in Illinois who robbed the United States Mail. 
That is the relation that is in question here, and the 
Supreme Court of the United States took it up entirely 
from that point of view, not at all as a Temperance ques- 
tion or an anti-temperance question, but just as it has 
taken it from the foundation of the Government, as a ques- 
tion of transactions between citizens of different States, 
and so exclusively within the province and control of the 
Congress of the United States. 

Secretary J. N. Stearns, of the National Temperance 
Society, said : 

At the twenty-fifth anniversary of the National Tem- 
perance Society, held in this house the 13th of last month, 
a resolution was adopted asking Congress to promptly 
prohibit all importation of intoxicating liquors for bev- 
erage use into such States and localities as have declared 
the Liquor Traffic unlawful. I was appointed one of a 
committee to proceed to Washington and present this 
resolution to Congress. I gave it into the hands of Hon. 
William M. Evarts, the senior Senator from this State, 
who presented it to the Senate the day that this question 
was to come up for discussion. He requested that the 



WEDNESDAY EVEETSTG. 179 

Clerk read it from the desk, and it was printed in full in 
the Congressional Record. The u Original Package" de- 
cision had been foreseen, and a bill was presented to the 
last Congress to meet the case and allow each State to 
prohibit the sale in Prohibition States, which was re- 
ferred to the Judiciary Committee of the Senate. 
Senator Evarts last year had united with the Demo- 
cratic Senators on that committee in an adverse report, 
on the ground of " Constitutional objections. ' ' Senators 
Edmunds, Ingalls, Wilson, and Hale made a minority re- 
port. I listened to the debate last month for four hour 
from the Senators' gallery, and the discussion was in- 
tensely interesting. Senator Evarts and nearly every 
other Senator listened attentively to the entire debate. 
On the second day Mr. Evarts, to the surprise of many, 
made an able and eloquent speech in favor of giving 
authority to the several States to have exclusive control 
over the entire liquor question. He explained his change 
of front by quoting from the decision of the Supreme 
Court in the " Original Package" case, which suggested 
that Congress had the authority and could take the action 
proposed. This was a part of the decision, and removed 
the Constitutional objection of one year ago. The Su- 
preme Court, in its last decision, said, " The responsi- 
bility is upon Congress, so far as the regulation of inter- 
state commerce is concerned, to remove the restrictions 
upon the State in dealing with imported articles ;" and 
it is obvious that the Court would uphold Congress in 
granting such permission to the several States. In pre- 
senting our petition to Senator Evarts, I quoted to him 
the remark of Rev. Dr. Cuyler, our president, at our 
twenty-fifth anniversary, that unless this Congress should 
take prompt and right action in the matter, we would 
elect a Congress which would give us relief ; and now I 
believe the House of Representatives will pass some 



180 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

measure of relief, even if they do not give us the exact 
Senate bill. This 13 as much needed for the Local Op- 
tionists of the South, the High License men of the West, 
as for the Prohibitionists of the Prohibition States. It 
leaves the whole matter of the police power of the States 
where it was before, and where it properly belongs, the 
recent decision to the contrary notwithstanding. This 
leaves it under the control of the several States to deal 
wath it by Prohibition, regulation, taxes, License, or Local 
Option. I would call the attention of this audience to the 
fact that the House of Eepresentatives has just adopted 
the report of the Conference Committee of both Houses 
on the " Canteen" business, which absolutely prohibits 
the sale of all intoxicating liquors in canteens now in ex- 
istence or to be established in Prohibition States, and 
this that we now ask in relation to the " Original Pack- 
age" business is no more than they have already done on 
the " Canteen" question. 
The next topic was : 

Is High License to be Regarded as a Remedy ? 

Rev. A. A. Miner, D.D., spoke as follows : 

Mr. President and Christian Friends : I shall not under- 
take to explain to you why one who takes the negative 
of the question before us is called upon to lead in the 
discussion. If anybody else chooses to tell you, all right. 

We have been discussing to-day the necessity and im- 
portance of united effort, and yet we have had all sorts 
of opinions here. Do you not know that a house built 
on the sand cannot stand ? Do you not know that only 
that house which is built on the solid rock of everlasting 
truth, as it lies in the very nature of things, can endure ? 
It is useless to undertake to run this universe on falsehood. 
It will screak at every joint. We tried it in the cause of 



WEDNESDAY EVENING. 181 

slavery, and you know how it came out. There is no 
great enterprise that can be carried forward successfully, 
except on the basis of rigid, thorough truth. And that 
truth does not declare that High License can cure intem- 
perance. You shall go out into these streets, and up and 
down the platform here and in the aisles, and ask men of 
various opinions what they think of Prohibition. " Oh, 
it is a very fanatical and radical doctrine. It can never 
go. I am in favor of High License, but I am as much of 
a Temperance man as you are." All right. Now let us 
say we are all Temperance men together ; but doesn't it 
clearly appear that there are two kinds of Temperance 
— one the drinking kind and the other the abstaining 
kind ? And do you not see very clearly that all who 
drink belong to the drinking kind and all who abstain 
belong to the abstaining kind ? Now don't complain. 
I am not accusing you. You may be right. Tip your 
glass a little higher if you think you are ; and that is 
just what you are likely to do. 

Now the drinking Temperance party is an immense 
party. The whole body of drinkers belongs to it. The 
leaders of the great parties belong to it, and the rank and 
file of the parties, to a large extent, belong to it. It is 
an enormous party, and it has immense revenues. Why, 
it swallowed last year, in vindication of its faith, twelve 
hundred and eighty millions of dollars. How is that for 
high ? The total bank capital of the country, $717,000,- 
000, would not last it seven months. That immense 
party, numerous, powerful, rich, with all the machinery 
of government in its hands, is led by the Liquor Traffic, 
assisted by the two great political parties — all right, I 
suppose — with now and then a doctor of divinity to lend 
a hand. I don't say it isn't quite right that he should. 
But I ask you to observe that this great party is not a 
reform party. It is just the old party, that had posses- 



182 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

sion of the world since civilization began. They are 
running exactly the experiment that has been going 
on ever since I was a little boy, and, I have great reason 
to believe, so far as history may be trusted, for genera- 
tions before — viz., an attempt to drink moderately and 
have no drunkenness. It has never been done. We are 
tauuted with the declaration that Prohibitionists have 
never captured a great city. Gracious father ! What 
chance have they ever had to capture New York, with 
the entire press of the country, with the entire Liquor 
Traffic of the country, with the entire body of drinkers 
of the country, with the two great political parties 
of the country, shouting for License, never daring to 
trust a Prohibitionist in an executive office ? What 
chance have we had to do anything with the great cities ? 
On one occasion, when, in Massachusetts, a year or two 
since, they were discussing the question of narrowing 
licenses to one in a thousand or five hundred (and they 
finally settled down on five hundred — they always give 
the doubt to the drinker), the Governor, who himself 
was a Total Abstainer and a Prohibitionist (that is, he 
thought he was), said to me, in the ante-room of Faneuil 
Hall, u The Chairman of the Police Commission expresses 
grave doubt whether, if enacted into law, it could be 
executed." I said, u Governor, it is exceedingly diffi- 
cult for men to execute a law when they don't want to. 
If you will dismiss those three commissioners and ap- 
point three men whom I will name to you, I will be per- 
sonally responsible that the law shall be executed.' ' 
What did he say ? Just what you are saying now — noth- 
ing at all. He knew perfectly well it could be executed. 
The difficulty is not in the drink. It is not in the 
drinker. It is not in the law. It is in the executors of 
the law. It takes a man to execute law in troublous 
times ; and any execution of any law that should disturb 



WEDNESDAY EVENING. 183 

the Liquor Traffic in a city like New York or Boston oc- 
casions troublous times, , 

Now, what is the difficulty ? High License stands on 
a foundation of sand. It says, '' We will drink mod- 
erately." Bat what is moderation? It is one glass, 
perhaps, for a man who is not used to it. A man not used 
to it cannot stand one glass. But here are some — oh, no, 
they are not here. u There are some fellows what I know 
of 1 ' that can carry a half dozen glasses and more, and 
not mind it. "What is moderate drinking ? Then there 
is this fact in the whole problem. The drinking of al- 
coholic liquors nourishes a fictitious appetite, not a natural 
one. I was thirsty just now, and I was kindly favored with 
a glass of water. That was sufficient. And if I should be 
dry to-morrow, another glass of water would answer. 
But if I were to take whiskey instead of water, it would 
take a little more to-morrow than it will to-day, unless I 
braced myself against it. Well, men do that. Hosts of 
moderate drinkers, with their eyes open to the danger, 
do brace themselves against the indulgence of a growing 
appetite ; and it takes more effort, every year they live, 
to stand against it ; and they don't continue to stand 
always. I would by no means be personal in this pres- 
ence, but I have in mind a most estimable lady, the wife 
of a bishop of one of the most distinguished churches of 
our land, who went down to a drunkard's grave ; the 
wife of one of the most elegant writers that America 
ever knew, who went down to a drunkard's grave. And 
they were both in Boston. I knew them. Many a man 
and many a woman in our cities indulges in drink mod- 
erately, moderately, moderately, but with a little growing 
force in the appetite, until, when ambition declines, and 
appetite becomes stronger, and their conscious observ- 
ance of their real condition has lapsed, they fall into 
drunkenness, and fill drunkards' graves. Moderate 



184 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

drinking ! The nearer you come to the line — ah ! there 
is no line, as we just said ; what is moderate for one is 
immoderate for another. But when you come nearer to 
that line which should be the demarcation with you be- 
tween moderation and immoderateness, the greater is the 
danger of your overstepping it. The very moment when 
you ought to see most clearly, you can see least. It is 
the very nature of the drink to confuse your conscious- 
ness, as you have been told to-day, and to lead you to 
misjudge until it is too late. The natural trend of drink- 
ing is toward drunkenness. It does not make any differ- 
ence whether the liquor is licensed, high or low, or 
simply tolerated. It is not the License that affects the 
quality of the liquor. It is the drinking of it that ex- 
poses one to damage. 

Just now, in Massachusetts, we are in the habit of sit- 
ting down to drink. To our late Governor of exemplary 
renown, so distinguished in our late Civil War, belongs 
the honor of doing away with perpendicular drinking, 
and recommending that the drinker be required to sit at 
a table and take a little lunch at the same time. I have 
never quite reached that ideal degree of excellence in 
managing the question of License. They have been 
granting all along, for a series of years, licenses to men 
to keep hotels. There would be an old stove without a 
pipe, and a piece of cracker, one or two chairs, and a 
stand-up bar for drinking. All at once the License Gov- 
ernor of Massachusetts has awakened to the profound 
discovery that that is contrary to law, and has recom- 
mended that the law be executed. He suggests the 
amendment, and the Legislature goes to work upon it. 
There was opposition from the liquor men and the men 
who were afraid the party would put itself in some ridic- 
ulous position. It can't do it. It has been there too 
long. The result is that the Commission announced 



WEDNESDAY EVENING. 185 

their determination to execute the law. Well, we said, 
" If they execute the law as the courts in Massachusetts 
have defined it, they will prevent any License being given 
to anybody that does not keep an honest and straight- 
forward restaurant or hotel." But the Commissioners 
are interpreting it to allow the sitting down to the table 
without provision, and there are two cases now on the 
way to the higher courts to settle the question whether 
the Commissioners are good judges of law or not. How- 
ever, the question of License comes in here, you perceive, 
as an incident. 

Now, why do the drinking Temperance party want sa- 
loons ? Because they are drinking men. I give every 
man a fair chance to say he desires the death of the 
saloon. But I stand here to say that it is no infringe- 
ment upon any man's prerogative to say that, if he holds 
to drinking, he holds to having some way of getting his 
drink ; and out of that comes our whole License system, 
and this is an old affair. It has been our history for 
generations. And I therefore repeat that this is not a 
reform party. 

Now turn the leaf, and you have the abstaining Tem- 
perance party. What are they trying to do ? They are 
not trying to drink and see how near they can come and 
not get intoxicated. They perceive that the growth of 
appetite naturally, with a large class of persons, runs 
into drunkenness ; and just so long as drinking habits 
pass for Temperance, so long we shall have drunkenness. 

"But," says some wise man, "it is conceded that 
Temperance means moderation." So it does. Temper- 
ance in all things means moderation in all things. So it 
does, with a very little qualification. It does not mean 
the swallowing of drink that is poisonous. 

"But," you say, "the Prohibition declaration that 
alcohol is poison is an extreme position ; it is false, not 



186 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

true at all." And why? Because here is Mr. A. B., 
who has taken a drink of gin or whiskey, more or less, 
every day for a long number of years, and he is alive yet. 
Yery well. Here is Mrs. C, D., who has used arsenic 
every day in the year for a great many years, and it has 
beautified her complexion wonderfully. But is not 
arsenic a poison ? But do you say arsenic is used, in this 
case, in such small doses that it is not fatal. It operates, 
you see. Her complexion shows that. But it is a poison 
nevertheless. Now you give a gill of whiskey to a child 
of a year old, and in a few minutes that child is dead. 

I was told a few minutes since that, in the absence of 
the speaker expected to follow, I might use half an 
hour. So I have been taking a little broader range than 
I would otherwise have done. I am permitted now to 
add a word or two ; and thus, turning quite aside from 
the line I was taking to the fact that High License has 
done nothing, I alluded, just now, to the laws of Massa- 
chusetts. I call your attention to a report which I hold 
in my hand, of the present state of things as just devel- 
oped by careful statistics. In the chief cities of Massa- 
chusetts the result of High License has been something 
as follows. I call your attention first to Boston, where, 
for 1886, 1887, 1888, and 1889, the License fee has run 
from $250 to $350, $400, and $1000, and the number of 
arrests for drunkenness daily, averages forty-four, fifty- 
two, sixty-three, and sixty-eight, rising gradually as the 
charge for License rises. The total number of arrests of 
all kinds rises in the same way, regularly, showing that 
the increase of License has not lessened drunkenness. 
And it ought to be remarked, in a general way, that in 
connection with all this business of License, no matter 
whether you license many or few shops, underneath these 
licensed shops run what you have spoken of as a " speak- 
easy" style of drinking, so that the amount of drinking 



WEDNESDAY EYENIKG, 181 

is in no wise diminished, I have before me the reports 
of the cities of Lynn, Fall River, Worcester, Salem, 
Taunton, Waltham, and Newbury port, but I haven't time 
to present them to you. They all tell a kindred story, 
uniformly, that under High License drunkenness in- 
creases.— Dracut is called for. Lowell voted No License 
this year, and Dracut, adjacent, this year voted License. 
A citizen offered $8000 for a license. It was granted to 
him, and the first day his shop was opened there was 
such a gathering of hoodlums and such a breach of the 
public peace that not only the community was fright- 
ened, but the licensee himself was frightened, and the 
proposition was to pay back the money and start anew, 
I see it announced, and that was alleged to have been 
done ; and the Legislature, having an interest in the mat- 
ter, of course was called upon to legislate. I see, how- 
ever, within a day or two, a statement that the experi- 
ment was to be renewed, and they are going to see if 
they can't run an $8000 license in the town of Dracut. 

Dr. Deems : Those of you who live in New York do 
not need to be told that, of all the men in the city of 
New York, there is no man of whom the saloonists are 
half as much afraid as they are of Dr. Crosby. It goes 
to that point that once, when General Clinton B. Fisk 
went into a saloon and began to make some rather pro- 
hibitory inquiries, the man shut up the thing at once and 
said, u You are one of them Crosby fellows." Here is 
the head of them all. 

Rev. Howard Crosby, D.D., spoke as follows . 

My Dear Brethren : There is many a good cause that 
has been lost by a division among its upholders. I think 
that the Temperance cause in our country has received 
great injury by the division among its advocates ; and I 
am here to-night to plead for harmony and union among 
those that may. differ very widely with regard to some of 



188 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE COHGRESS. 

the principles of Temperance. I have no doubt that a 
large majority of those before me have very different 
sentiments from what I have with regard to some of the 
features of the cause ; and yet I presume that I can find 
a common standing place with you whence we can fight 
shoulder to shoulder. 

With regard to the greatness of the evil, I don't sup- 
pose there will be the slightest difference of opinion be- 
tween us. With regard to the great importance of doing 
something, and doing something that is effectual, to 
stop the evil, I don't think there will be any difference. 
It is only with regard to the special form in which we 
shall apply measures to this end that we find the differ- 
ence. We have two great methods proposed by equally 
ardent, honest, upright, faithful Christian people. One 
is the great principle of Prohibition, which would de- 
stroy entirely both the traffic in and the use of anything 
whatever that had any alcohol in it as a beverage. I 
honor those who hold that sentiment. I know hundreds 
of them as my personal friends, at whose feet I love to 
sit and learn. There are others (and, brethren and sis- 
ters, let me tell you, they are the large majority, too, of 
Temperance people) who want to see the great evil de- 
stroyed ; who are not Prohibitionists, but are Restric- 
tionists. And as we Restrictionists want you Prohibi- 
tionists, it is but fair and just that you Prohibitionists 
should want us Restrictionists. 

Now in regard to the practical point. The ground on 
which I think we can all stand is a Restriction action and 
not a Prohibition action — viz., the utter destruction of the 
saloon. Now that is not Prohibition, except prohibition 
of the saloon ; and there I believe both parties can stand 
shoulder to shoulder, and fight. Now I can only speak 
of the city of New York, where I was born and bred, and 
where I have lived all my life, and where I have fought 



WEDNESDAY EVENING. 189 

with a great many wild beasts. And I know with re- 
gard to this city — I know it as I know any truth what- 
ever that is based on large presumption — I know that a ^ 
Prohibition law in this city would be the opening of the 
floodgates of rum and vice. That I am sure of. 

Now I have heard my good brother here just say that 
Restriction in the form of High License cannot succeed. 
Now let me tell you a fact. On January 1st, 1877, the 
city of New York had just one 1,000,000 of inhabitants. 
It had 11,000 licensed saloons. The License fee was $35. 
The License fee was raised to $200, and on January 1st, 
1889, when the population was 500,000 more, instead of 
11,000 licensed saloons there were 6,811. Now you say 
High License don't operate. I say it does. In this city 
of New York Restriction, and strong Restriction — far 
stronger than any we have had — will meet with the pop- 
ular desire, and we can accomplish it, and there will be 
a result ; whereas, in this city of New York, Prohibition 
will not meet with favor with those who never touched 
liquor in their lives, but who feel that the selling of 
liquor ought not to be put on the same basis as thieving. 
They believe that there is a difference. They believe 
that the selling of liquor is an evil because of its con- 
comitants, whereas thieving is an evil in itself at all 
times, and that therefore we cannot say, " As you pro- 
hibit theft, you must prohibit the selling of liquor. ' ' We 
believe that the things must be dealt with in a different 
way, if the public conscience is to be regarded ; and we 
cannot get along without the public helping us. So, as 
a practical measure for New York City, we say, the way 
to overcome the rum power is high, higher, higher License. 
In that way we will restrict it. Now there are two argu* 
ments made against it. " Oh, you will make it a mo- 
nopoly ! The rich men will have the rum shops." Very 
well. It is one of the necessities of all restrictions — the 



190 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

sale of gunpowder or anything else — that it will go into 
the hands of the wealthy classes, who are able to pay the 
License. It is one of the sad necessities we have to meet 
in reducing the amount of the injury done. The other 
objection is that by putting this money into the public 
treasury you will get the tax-payers to look to this as a 
source of revenue, and fasten the saloons as a permanent 
institution. Not at all. In the city of New York we do 
not put that money in the public treasury. We give it 
to the benevolent societies ; and they would be a great 
deal better off without it. We do not put that money 
in the public treasury, and therefore that argument is of 
no value in this city. 

Now the idea that some of us have, who have been 
quite active in putting down the excesses of the rum 
power in this city, is this : that in a city like New York 
we must have Restriction. We can't have Prohibition. 
We must have Restriction. Let that be coupled with 
Local Option for the larger towns of the State, and we 
then believe that we are going as far in the way of law 
as we possibly can to restrain and overcome the great evil. 

Now all I rose for to-night, and all I consented to speak 
for to-night, was to say this : That as you who are Pro- 
hibitionists are not unreasonable people, so we who are 
Restrictionists are not unreasonable people, and it is but 
perfectly proper and right that we should respect one 
another, should take hold of one another's hands in the 
work, and help one another in the work. And as Re- 
striction is on the road to Prohibition, and we are going 
thus far on your road, you and we can join together in 
this restrictive movement, and then, if you see fit, you 
can go on as much farther as you please. But I sit down, 
saying what I said when I began. It is a shame for us 
to be quarrelling among ourselves, when we ought to have 
the desire to benefit this great country and destroy this 



WEDNESDAY EVENING. 191 

great evil, and should take hold of some measure in 
which we can all join. May God help us to this union 
and this co-operation, and if we do unite, we are the 
vast majority of this country, and we can bring about 
the end desired. 

Dr. Deems : Would not Dr. Crosby join any Temper- 
ance men in the State of New York to bring about the 
Prohibition, by law, of the sale of any kind of distilled 
spirits ? 

Dr. Crosby : Certainly I would, and I would join any 
one in utterly squelching the saloon forever. 

Dr. Funic : You stated, Doctor, that the saloons were 
cut down from 11,000 in 1877 to 6,811 on January 1st, 
1889, and that it was caused by the increase of License 
from $35 to $200 ? 

Dr. Crosby : That was virtually the cause. 

Dr. Funk : Was not the real cause that the Commis- 
sioners refused to grant any more licenses until the num- 
ber was reduced to that extent— not because the price 
was raised to $200 ? 

Dr. Crosby : It was partly that, and partly the Society 
of which I have the honor to be president was putting 
its finger in the pie and bringing the thing down. All 
these things co-operated, but High License had a great 
deal to do with it. 

Dr. Miner : In Lowell the number of saloons was re- 
duced from something like sixty to four, the latter being 
on a High License of $1300 each, and the number of ar- 
rests for drunkenness increased nearly one hundred per 
cent. Now it does not follow at all that the drinking 
or sale of liquor was decreased in New York City from 
the facts which the Doctor mentioned. 

Dr. Crosby : I will tell Dr. Miner what the aim is in 
the city of New York. I can't tell about Boston. The 
one great question in reducing the number in New York 



192 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

City is, that you can watch them. You can't watch 
11,000, but if you can get them down to 2000, as I hope 
we shall before long, you can watch them carefully, and 
you can keep them from being nests of crime. That is 
one great thing. People who live in the rural districts 
don't know anything about it. 

A Voice : I would like to know from what part of New 
York the 4000 saloons have disappeared. 

Dr. Deems : As it was I that put my foot into it by 
asking Dr. Crosby a question, I beg that the ladies and 
gentlemen will not embarrass me more. Let me tell you 
why I asked that question. That is Howard Crosby, of 
whom you have heard so often that he does occasionally 
go to bed sober at night, but it is only occasionally. 
That is Howard Crosby, of whom you have heard that 
the saloons flourish under the shadow of his wings. 
That is Howard Crosby, who comes forward now and 
says he will join us and use his powerful influence with 
the Legislature of the State of New York to totally pro- 
hibit the sale of distilled spirits. Suppose now we 
could have that Howard Crosby wing and the other 
wings come together and get that much Prohibition. 
Wouldn't you go with it ? 

Now just one other point. The object of our Congress 
is to come together in this way and practically discuss 
these matters. We are going to drown the saloon at 
the Battery. We all want to start at Central Park. 
Some may have to get off at Fifty-seventh Street, some 
at Thirty-fourth Street, and some at Twenty-third ; but I 
hope we will have enough when we get to the Battery to 
drown the saloon. 

The Congress adjourned until Thursday morning. 



THURSDAY MORNING. 103 



THURSDAY MORNING, JUNE 12TH. 

The meeting was opened with singing, and prayer was 
offered by Rev. Mr. Hudson. 

The President : In the beginning, ladies and gentle- 
men, allow me to thank you for the great support you 
gave to the Chair in the proceedings of yesterday. If it 
be true that the Temperance people are all cranks — all of 
us, men and women and children — I do think it is a very 
delightful thing to preside over a company of cranks ; and, 
call us by what name they will, we certainly have had 
one good day together. 

Now, will you try to make it better to-day ? I am go- 
ing to adhere to the rules laid down. Names are sent up 
that would take two hours to discuss this topic. They 
cannot all come in. Just say it is the fault of the time, 
not of the Chair. 

The first subject for the morning was : 

Should there be a Political Party whose Domi- 
nant Idea is the Prohibition of the Liquor 
Traffic ? 

The discussion was opened by H. K. Carroll, LL.D., 
who spoke as follows : 

This question is not quite as definite as it might be ; 
but I assume that what it is meant to ask is, whether 
there should be a National political party whose domi- 
nant idea is the prohibition of the Liquor Traffic. Upon 
this assumption, I shall proceed to show, as fully as the 
time allotted me will permit, that such a party is not 
needed. 

My first answer to the question is, that Prohibition is 
not, except in a very limited sense, within the scope of 



194 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

the powers confided to Congress in the Constitution of 
the United States. 

Congress has no power to legislate on the subject of 
Prohibition within the boundaries of any of the States. 
This power the States never surrendered to the Federal 
Government, but reserved to themselves. There can be 
no Prohibition in a single one of the forty-two States 
except by the will and action of the States themselves. 
Congress cannot make the first move to secure Prohibi- 
tion in this State of New York or in any other State in 
the Union. Congress can pass no laws for the enforce- 
ment of State Prohibition, constitutional or otherwise. 
It can tax ; but it cannot license, regulate, or prohibit 
the manufacture or sale of intoxicants within the States. 
The only power it has with respect to intoxicants is re- 
stricted to the Territories and the District of Columbia, 
to army and navy regulations, and to importations, in so 
far as they come under the head of foreign or interstate 
commerce. This indicates the entire scope of Prohibi- 
tion as a national question. 

Congress may undoubtedly prevent the sale of intox- 
icants at army posts and in naval vessels ; but our army 
and navy are scarcely large enough, you will all admit, 
to make the exercise of this power a dominant national 
question. 

Congress may also enact prohibitory laws for the Ter- 
ritories and the District of Columbia. I do not contend 
that it is not desirable that Congress should use its 
power to free these Federal organizations from the 
blighting effects of the Liquor Traffic ; but I do say that 
this is comparatively a very small question. We have 
forty-two States, but we have only nine Territories, in- 
cluding the District of Columbia. Scarcely a million of 
our sixty-six millions of population reside in the Terri- 
tories. The importance of Prohibition for the million is 



THURSDAY MOUNIXG. 195 

but small indeed compared with the importance of Pro- 
hibition for the sixty-five millions in the States. The 
Liquor Traffic is entrenched in the States, not in the Ter- 
ritories ; and the battle ground of Prohibition is in the 
States. Once secure the States, and the Territories will 
follow without effort. Indeed, Congress has already en- 
acted Prohibition in one of the Territories. 

The same thing is true of importations. This is a 
larger and more important field than the Territories for 
prohibitory enactment. But however important it may 
be to cut off as soon as possible this source of supply for 
the drink traffic of this country, it is in itself only an 
incident in the great fight for Prohibition. The place of 
beginning is in the sovereign State. You cannot force 
questions out of their proper order. The States must 
move first. When the States, or any considerable num- 
ber of them, shall have determined not to have intoxi- 
cants manufactured or sold within their bounds, Con- 
gress will hardly need to be urged to supplement their 
action with appropriate national legislation. Congress 
will not be slow to respond to the sentiment of the 
States, when that sentiment is once expressed for Pro- 
hibition. The Representatives of Prohibition States in 
Congress are quite ready, and so are others, to vote Pro- 
hibition for the Territories ; and in so far as the power 
of Congress to regulate interstate commerce touches the 
police power of the States over the Liquor Traffic, Con- 
gress does not refuse to grant the relief asked for, as the 
passage of the Wilson Bill in the Senate witnesses. 

Prohibition is eminently a State question. The States 
only have full power to enact and enforce it. The Su- 
preme Court of the United States has again and again 
declared that the regulation, restriction, or prohibition of 
the manufacture and sale of intoxicants is entirely in the 
hands of the several States. In the Mugler case the 



196 KATIOXAL TEMPERANCE COKGRESS. 

Court said that State enactments regulating, restricting, 
or prohibiting the traffic raise no question under the 
Constitution of the United States, and are, therefore, 
left to the discretion of the respective States, " subject 
to no other limitations than those imposed by their own 
constitutions or by the general principles supposed to 
limit all legislative power.' ' All such enactments be- 
long to the police power of the States. This power is 
lodged in the legislatures of the States, which may decide 
what u measures are proper or needful for the protection 
of the public morals, the public health, or the public 
safety. " " This right is, ' ' says the Supreme Court, in the 
case of Stone versus Mississippi, " inalienable." It affirms 
that " no legislature can bargain away the public health 
or the public morals. The people themselves cannot do 
it, much less their servants. " While this power remains 
in the hands of the States, it is State action and not na- 
tional action which we must look to for the enactment 
and enforcement of Prohibition. 

Having shown beyond question that the Federal Gov- 
ernment cannot enact or enforce Prohibition in a single 
State, I do not need to go into an elaborate argument to 
prove that a national party with Prohibition as its domi- 
nant idea is not needed. A national party must, in order 
to live, or grow, or succeed, have a possible national issue 
to advocate. Prohibition is not a possible national issue 
because it is not a possible national function. It is a State 
function, and therefore a State issue. Prohibition may be 
made a dominant idea in any State ; but a national party 
nominating candidates for President, Vice-President, and 
Congress, on a platform having a State question as its 
dominant idea, strikes me as a most illogioal and anom- 
alous thing in politics. The only voters qualified to 
elect a national ticket are those residing within the 
States. A national party with Prohibition as its dominant 



THURSDAY MORNING. 197 

idea asks these voters to vote for a CoDgress that cannot 
make so much as one inch of their soil Prohibition soil. 
You must radically change the Constitution of the United 
States before you can make Prohibition a national ques- 
tion ; and until it is a possible national question a special 
party to advocate it will fail to attain to the dignity and 
power of a really national party. 

My second answer is, that while it is within the power 
of three-fourths of the States to add an amendment to the 
Constitution of the United States vesting in Congress 
full power to enact and enforce Prohibition in the States 
as well as in the Territories, it is inconceivable that the 
States will ever do so. Because, first, they would have 
to surrender a very large part of their police power to 
the Federal Government ; because, second, the exercise 
of this police power, which is peculiarly appropriate to 
the States, would be difficult, if not impossible to the 
Federal Government ; because, third, it would necessi- 
tate two sets of magistrates and police in every city, town, 
and village in the country ; and because, fourth, there 
would arise conflicts between the State and the Federal 
police. National Prohibition without a large national 
police force behind it would be utterly futile. From the 
nature of the case, a national police could not be as 
effective as State police. I do not believe there is a 
State in the Union, however strong its Prohibition senti- 
ment may be, that would ratify such an amendment. 

My third answer is, that the experiment has already 
been tried. We have a party in politics whose dominant 
idea is declared to be Prohibition. It has had candi- 
dates on this platform in several national campaigns. 
What is the result ? It has not elected a single candi- 
date to any national position. It has yet to elect its first 
member of Congress. Its aggregate strength in the last 
Presidential election was less than 250,000, out of a, total 



198 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

vote of 11,392,382. The small ness of the vote was ex- 
plained by the friends of this special party as due to the 
fact that the tariff, though not a real issue, was made 
an issue artificially by the old parties. Now, if an arti- 
ficial issue can thus absorb almost the entire voting 
strength of the country, despite the presence in the field 
of a party with Prohibition as its dominant idea, where 
will the special party appear when the old parties bring 
a real issue into the arena ? Moreover, election statistics 
show that this special party polled a larger vote by forty 
thousand on its State tickets in the elections preceding 
1888 than it got for its national ticket in the Presidential 
election. What is the explanation of this fact if it does 
not mean that Prohibition is a State and not a National 
question ? 

I believe most thoroughly in the idea of Prohibition. 
The more I study the Temperance question the more 
strongly convinced I become that Prohibition is the 
remedy for the evils of the Liquor Traffic. Other legis- 
lative devices are at best mitigative in their effects. 
Prohibition is a radical and effective cure wherever it can 
be fairly applied. The great battle-ground of Prohibi- 
tion for the present and immediate future is in the States 
severally. In every State that has it not in some form 
it is a possible issue. If a special party, whose dominant 
idea shall be Prohibition, is needed anywhere, it is needed 
in some of the States. Wherever neither of the old 
parties can be induced to respond to the demands of 
public sentiment and submit prohibitory amendments, or 
pass prohibitory statutes or local option or restrictive 
measures, let a balance-of-power party come into the 
field. Here is a field into which the tariff and other di- 
verting questions cannot be intruded ; here is a field with 
a real, practical, pertinent issue to be settled ; here is a 
field not for sham battles, but for hard, direct, earnest 



THURSDAY MORNIKG. 199 

fighting. A party, or rather a movement, on such a 
basis as this, with such an issue, would unite, not divide, 
the friends of Prohibition. The effect of the special 
National party, whose dominanfldea is Prohibition, has 
been divisive everywhere. In Rhode Island, Pennsyl- 
vania, Michigan, Tennessee, and other States the num- 
ber of votes cast for the tickets of this special party has 
been but a small fraction of the number of votes cast 
for prohibitory amendments. This shows conclusively 
that the partisan element is really a hindrance in the 
conduct of campaigns in the States for prohibitory 
amendments and prohibitory legislation. In conclusion, 
I am satisfied that we shall have more Prohibition if we 
can only have less Prohibition partisanship. 

The next speaker was ex-President John Bascom, D.D., 
late of Wisconsin University, who said : 

I wish to urge three among many reasons which call 
for a distinct political organization as a means of pass- 
ing and enforcing prohibitory laws. In the first place, 
it is, on grounds entirely general, a great gain to carry 
any question which is at once morally, politically, and so- 
cially important, into politics. The greatest defect, the 
most manifest danger, in our political life is the ready 
loss of genuine and weighty issues between the two po- 
litical parties. The appearance of such issues is main- 
tained when they are really wanting, and we suffer that 
great degradation of politics in which personal interests 
are pursued under the guise of patriotism. Ostensible 
motives thus become more and more misleading, real 
motives more and more unworthy. Our nominations to 
office, our methods of securing office, and our use of it 
when attained, are increasingly unbearable under old 
political divisions. For this steady decline in political 
action there is no remedy within the parties themselves. 
New moral life must be infused into politics by fresh 



200 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

moral issues, broached and pushed in an independent 
way. The moment one question is settled, another should 
take its place. A real, an important, a dividing issue 
must constantly lie between rival parties, or they sink 
into factions, and the struggle for power becomes an 
unscrupulous pursuit of victory. When the immediate, 
organizing purpose of the radical or progressive party is 
accomplished, or for any reason disappears, it should be 
replaced by another. This replacement involves a re- 
formation, as no new issue is likely to be engrafted on a 
previous movement without a somewhat distinct change 
of principles and persons. 

The progressive party in our politics tends, under ex- 
isting methods, to rapid deterioration. As long as an 
important social principle is in the foreground, one which 
has not yet secured the popular assent, men of convic- 
tion and moral purpose are called out to guide and sus- 
tain the movement. When success has been achieved, 
those who make a business of politics succeed to power. 
The leadership, quietly and increasingly, passes into 
their hands. They immediately lay aside real issues, as 
involving new perplexities and fresh sacrifices, and seek 
for secondary, unreal, and captivating planks and plat- 
forms, and repeat in routine the old rallying cries, all 
with immediate reference to success. Success being 
achieved, they fulfil their promises in the same spirit in 
which they made them, as a means of binding together 
those in power, carefully avoiding any fresh division or 
any difficult duty. A few years suffice, under this nat- 
ural and inevitable degeneracy of politics, to strip the 
party of moral ideas, of either avowed or latent principles, 
and to deeply involve it in all immoral methods. A 
conservative party more readily preserves its own inertia, 
but a progressive party must renew its moral momentum 
by a distinct and rapid avowal of fresh political truths. 



THURSDAY MORtflSIG. 201 

Failing of this, it fails of its mission ; and failing of its 
mission, it becomes a fatal embarrassment to progress. 

Remedies sometimes bear the direction, " Shake thor- 
oughly before using. ' ' The injunction is in order in poli- 
tics. Personal interests so readily separate themselves 
from worthy motives, and rise to the surface, that no re- 
form party retains its remedial power without being often 
shaken together, and so imbued with moral life. Shake 
thoroughly before using is the rule which should to-day 
govern our political action. 

At the present moment the Republican Party is under 
leadership of the most unscrupulous order, and allows 
itself to accept and create issues with no deep, underly- 
ing conviction. The question of the tariff, which has 
slowly gotten itself into the foreground by the force of 
circumstances, has resulted in an extreme policy out of 
sorts with the previous history of the Republican Party. 
This policy is neither sustained b} r popular sentiment 
nor sober political conviction, but is a blind, unman- 
ageable product of personal interests and political exi- 
gencies met with no forecast and handled with no coun- 
sel. A constant reconstruction of parties is thus an in- 
herent demand of a sound political life. Such a question 
as that involved in the Liquor Traffic, in the breadth of 
the moral principles it contains and in the importance 
of the interests it covers, demands the foreground, and 
should be cordially conceded this position as the imme- 
diate means of renovating our political life. 

A second reason why Prohibition must be allowed to 
become a primary purpose in politics is, that in no other 
way can the very difficult work of suppressing the sale 
of intoxicating drinks be accomplished. 

Widespread and pushing interests, persistent and irra- 
tional appetites, sustain the traffic. These are in no way 
eliminated, they are hardly altered by Prohibition. The 



202 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

reformation is not simply one of law ; it is one of moral 
convictions, social customs, economic action, and physi- 
cal tendencies. Time, patience, perseverance, power, 
are called for in its accomplishment. We expect to suc- 
ceed too easily, and think that we have succeeded when 
we have only just opened the conflict. 

A great many believe in the principle of Prohibition 
who are not prepared to make any serious sacrifices for 
it. Enthusiasm, popular good-will, go far in securing 
law ; they go but a little way in enforcing it. Law, 
therefore, is often found quite in advance of the effective 
public sentiment which mast be relied on to sustain it. 
I have had occasion to help in different communities the 
enforcement of restrictive and prohibitory laws. I have 
invariably found many who, before opposition was awa- 
kened, professed themselves willing and thought them- 
selves willing to render effective aid. I have as invari- 
ably found that when the strife became bitter many 
failed to respond to their purposes and promises. The 
real moral force, in most prohibitory communities, has 
not been equal to the work it had in hand, In the life, 
either of a person or of a community, it is one thing to 
resolve on reform and another thing to accomplish that 
reform. We must, therefore, distinctly recognize this 
fact, anticipate a protracted struggle, and provide the 
means for it. In this struggle not only the law, but 
the officers of the law, must be on the side of enforce- 
ment. The law without the officers of the law is a mere 
abstraction. It is in vain to expect one who has been 
elected on another issue, and whose political success is 
endangered by sustaining law, to render it any cordial 
support. It is equally vain to suppose that any private, 
personal efforts to enforce law, without the support of 
those chosen to administer it, and whose duty it is to 
administer it, will, in any high degree or for any con- 



THURSDAY MORNING. 203 

siderable period, be successful. The very need of a law 
and order league implies a hopeless division of senti- 
ment in the community. Such a league is, in its own 
nature, revolutionary. A sound social method requires 
not only a righteous administration of law, but its ad- 
ministration by those to whom the citizens of the town, 
city, or State have committed it. The natural, the only 
sufficient manner of enforcing law is — except in some 
very transient and exceptional exigency — through the 
officers of the law, and this means a political issue and a 
political party. We are compelled not so much to carry 
this question into politics as to pursue it into politics, 
where it already is, and from the beginning has been. 
We cannot hunt foxes without full range ; without lib- 
erty to pursue them from field to forest and from forest 
to field. If this traffic — a fox that has so long and in so 
many ways entered our fold — can be allowed to take to 
the bush, to have uninterrupted and exclusive range of 
politics, where all voices are heard, all interests consult- 
ed, our successes will be very transient and very illusory. 
The history of the conflict thus far justifies this view. 
Prohibition has been partially successful — so successful 
as to show that Prohibition is wholly possible ; so un- 
successful as to show that the best means must be em- 
ployed in the most determined way. Thus two diverse 
opinions have sprung up among Temperance men, accord- 
ing to their courage : first, that Prohibition is a practical 
failure ; second, that Prohibition may be made a great 
success. 

The political Prohibitionist, in view of the history of 
this reform, has arrived at the following conclusions : 
All regulation is ineffective, and, in any thorough way, 
impossible. It is ineffective, since it assiduously cher- 
ishes the ever-growing roots of an ungovernable evil. It 
is impossible, as regards the accomplishment of what it 



204 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

undertakes, because the traffic retains its full strength 
of resistance, while the community calls out but a hesi- 
tating moiety of the moral power with which the evil is 
to be overcome. The political Prohibitionist believes, 
therefore, that the choice lies between a free recogni- 
tion of the traffic, meeting it exclusively with personal, 
moral motives, and its adequate and final repression. 
This repression he believes possible if undertaken in 
the right method, with settled determination to accom- 
plish it. 

A third reason for the formation of a political party is 
the impossibility of a continuous use of moral motives 
without it. The evils inflicted by this traffic involve 
every shade of injury and deep shades of criminality. 
We must face it and fight it along its entire front. It is 
not sufficient to persuade and convince men. Many 
helpless ones, women and children, are entitled to the 
instant and adequate protection of law. If we refuse to 
grant this safety, we neutralize the moral force of our 
entire argument. Wise protective law is itself a moral 
force, and the natural product of pure moral forces. We 
cannot maintain these forces in their vigor, and deny them 
their full, logical conclusion. The instant we attempt 
this, there is a reaction against our moral method which 
robs it of its momentum. Men will not assemble to con- 
sider familiar truths and enforce accepted sentiments, 
unless the discussion involves some fresh phase of action. 
The soundness of Temperance as a law of personal life is 
a conceded principle, and calls out no contradiction and 
elicits no interest. There is no diversity of sentiment 
except as regards the manner of procedure. The Tem- 
perance Reform has been from the beginning, and must 
be to the end, a discussion primarily of methods. These 
give the occasion on which the evils of intemperance can 
be set before us afresh, and successfully enforced. That 



THURSDAY MORKTXG. 205 

intemperance is a great evil is no discovery of our time. 
We may repeat this truism as often as we please, and it 
will gain neither new strength nor fresh interest by thj 
rehearsal. We must accept the logical conclusions, in 
action of moral ideas, or their moral power forsakes us. 
Our religious methods are sometimes urged as an ex- 
ample of a steady presentation of truth, irrespective of 
results. But religious truths constantly suffer from such 
a handling. Religious truth that is not made to cover 
the conduct that is ready to directly flow from it loses 
its efficacy as truth. I have lived in two different com- 
munities of much the same moral tone, in one of which 
the prohibitory issue was without interest, and in one of 
which it was a living question. Temperance wins no 
moral advocacy in the former community, and demands 
ready attention in the latter. It is impossible to separate 
interests in discussion, which living relations have united 
in practice. Moral motives must flow into politics, and 
political duties must nourish moral impulses. What 
God, in His historic providence, has united, no man can 
put asunder. 

The real question, therefore, is, shall we disregard the 
inherent force of facts, the logic of events, and, in full 
retreat, take again one by one the steps by which we 
have advanced ; or shall we, with the wisdom of the 
past and the courage of the future, make good our vic- 
tories by their immediate completion ? Such dividing 
points constantly recur in reform, and become the tests 
of real power. 

We ought, then, to carry this question into politics, 
that our political life may be made wholesome by a brac- 
ing, ethical atmosphere ; that we may handle the inter- 
ests involved most directly and effectively where they 
really are, and, from the nature of the case, must be as- 
sociated with our civic duties ; and that we may be true 



206 KATIOISTAL TEMPERANCE COKGRESS. 

to the growing moral impulse which this reform has 
awakened and ought to complete. 

The President : Mr. E. C. Heath, who was not elected 
Governor of Texas, but, as a great many of you think, 
ought to have been, will speak to this question. 

Mr. Heath said : 

Ladies and Gentlemen : I have come here from the Lone 
Star State, way down in Dixie, from the land of cotton, 
to look into the faces of the Temperance people of this 
nation, who desire to prohibit the Liquor Traffic by the 
strong arm of the government, which is the priceless 
heritage of the American people. Down in that country 
we have grounded our arms of rebellion. We know no 
North and no South, but one grand and glorious nation, 
indissoluble, fighting for the home against the saloon. 
I am a Prohibitionist. Why ? Because the Liquor Traffic 
ought to be prohibited. Second, because neither of the 
old parties will do it. Down in Texas they don't even 
allow us to talk about it, if they can help it, if we pro- 
pose to follow their parties. Down there my co-workers 
have called me to carry this standard in the present 
campaign, and I am going to do it, and carry it as near 
to victory as possible. Behind every saloon door in this 
State of New York — yea, behind every saloon door in 
this nation — stands a Democrat or a Republican. At the 
head of every distilling and brewing institution of this 
nation stands either a Republican or a Democrat. Every 
member of the Brewers' Congress of this nation is either 
a Republican or a Democrat. Then, how can we expect 
anything from this source ? I believe there should be a 
party, ladies and gentlemen, whose dominant idea i3 
Prohibition. Why ? Because the case demands it, and 
because it is somebody's duty to bring up this question 
and camp on its trail until the Liquor Traffic is abolish- 
ed. If we wait for the liquor men, the power behind 



THURSDAY MORNING. 207 

the throve of both the old parties, to bring up this ques- 
tion, and allow them to make it up for us, it is against us 
in the very make-up. Then, how can we expect any- 
thing, ladies and gentlemen, except from a party whose 
dominant idea is Prohibition ? For these reasons, ladies 
\ and gentlemen, and for many others, I am for a party 
whose dominant idea is Prohibition, and I believe that 
party is the Prohibition party of this nation. 

Mrs. Susan S. Fessenden, delegate from the Massa- 
chusetts Women's Christian Temperance Union, spoke as 
follows : 

Mr. President and Co-laborers in the great work of uplift- 
ing humanity : If we are agreed upon nothing else, we 
are united in one common desire to find the wisest means 
of dealing with mankind's greatest foe. 

We must have been impressed with the diversity of 
the means that have been suggested, all of them meriting 
our sympathy and co-operation. Not the least important 
is that referred to by Joseph Cook and to be more fully 
presented by my friend, Mrs. Hunt — that of educating 
the young. My heart is moved with responsive sympa- 
thy when I hear Mrs. Hunt say that ' ' the star of hope 
for the Temperance cause stands over the schoolhouse ; n 
and my enthusiasm is stirred when I listen to the chil- 
dren of our Loyal Temperance Legions, as they sing with 
such honest innocence, 

" All will be right when we get there to vote !" 

Then I reflect that these same children, when they enter 
the arena of life, will soon find that the road to political 
preferment lies through openly endorsing or most vigor- 
ously winking at the enormous evils and assumptions of 
the Liquor Traffic of this country. Do you say, then, 
teach our children to let politics alone ? What will be- 
come of the country ? A country ruled by the people 



208 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

delivered over to the very worst elements of the people, 
while lovers of purity and virtue decline to participate 
for fear of taint ! There is nothing more important to 
any country than its politics. When the politics of any 
country have become too impure to be participated in by 
the best people, it is high time for the best people to go 
to work to purify it for the perpetuity — for the very ex- 
istence — of the country. 

I venture to say that it is not ignorance that forms the 
largest factor in the consumption of alcoholic spirits. It 
is the excess of temptation and the low moral tone of the 
community. The former will continue as long as the 
saloon is permitted to flaunt itself in captivating brill- 
iance and attractiveness in the most conspicuous places ; 
and the latter as long as it receives governmental en- 
dorsement and protection, and good people vote for its 
continuance. I do not approve of using the education 
of our youth as a reason for leaving the overthrow of 
this terrible evil to the next generation. We might as 
well, in our war, have stacked arms, while we educated 
our children in loyalty and taught them how to fight ; 
what would they have had left to fight for, do you think, 
if we had pursued such a pusillanimous course ? 

In the diversity of means, therefore, let us not lose 
sight of the main issue, but buckle on our own armor 
to free this country from the legalized saloons ; then 
shall posterity rise up and call us blessed ! Down, 
then, with the delusion of High License, which is only 
the subtle sophistry of Mephistopheles to lead us to de- 
struction ! Banish the legalized saloon from this fair 
heritage. Get the National Prohibitory Amendment. 

To this end, first of all, let us have woman's ballot. 
Too long have the mothers of this country watched the 
spoliation of their offspring, and groaned in hopeless 
agony. Too long have they been like Rachel, weeping 



THURSDAY MORNING. 209 

for her children, and not to be comforted because unable 
to reach out a rescuing band. The women of this coun- 
try desire to pursue the fox spoken of by President Bas- 
com, which has so destroyed their vines. If we have any 
political party that will do these things for us, let it be 
a seek-no-further ; for what the success of this country 
demands is justice, purity, Temperance. Only by these 
can we fulfil the design of our Creator in raising us to 
our almost dizzying height of prosperity and honor. 
If we have no political party that will do this, and do it 
now, let us speedily get one. 

Education is a matter of tremendous importance, but 
if we use it to permit us to live in luxury, supinely neg- 
lecting to do our first works, we need not expect that 
any amount of psychological and scientific education will 
make it likely that our childreu will rise superior to this 
inertia, and do their woi k and ours too. If they should, 
it would be an everlasting stigma upon us. 

Mr. Henry Clay Bascom spoke as follows : 

I am just requested to invite somebody from the other 
side to speak after me. Since I have the determination 
of that question, I am glad to give the invitation. 

In its yesterday afternoon edition, the organ of the 
Anti-Saloon Republicans hopes that this Congress will 
do something besides talk. This probably implies a 
conviction upon the part of the Mail and Express that 
this assembly cannot keep faith with the public without 
crystallizing its opinions and embodying them in resolu- 
tions. The call proposes to discover " common ground 
upon which all Temperance workers may battle against 
the drink traffic, and, if possible, to enlarge that ground." 
I am not prepared to dissent from that criticism, for, 
so far as the outside world is concerned, it will not be 
known that we have agreed upon anything unless we 
take a vote to obtain consensus of opinion. No resolu- 



210 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

tions are necessary to reveal the overwhelming convic- 
tion of this Congress that a Prohibition Party is needed. 

The saying that silence gives consent goes by con- 
traries in this body ; silence expresses dissent, and ap- 
plause endorses Prohibition. In like manner, this audi- 
ence has unanimously approved the able paper of Dr. 
Davis, showing alcohol to be a narcotic poison, never to 
be used for beverage purposes As Prohibitionists, we 
hold that the alcoholic poison destroys more people than 
all other poisons, and that the State is bound to classify 
its sale with other poisons, inhibiting its use for purposes 
of self-destruction. 

In advocating a License system, a speaker yesterday 
afternoon said, in substance, " Prohibition laws result 
in free rum, except as the sale may be limited by fines 
and imprisonments." Quite correct ; horse-stealing is 
free grand larceny, except as it is limited by fines and 
imprisonments. We rest the claims of Prohibition right 
there. The Liquor Traffic is the cause of at least three- 
fourths of the crimes for which victims are languishing 
in prison. We do not propose to license, legalize, the 
father of crimes, while we punish its more innocent prog- 
eny. We propose to outlaw the Liquor Traffic, making 
the law a schoolmaster, whose penalties shall educate 
the people, as they are now educated against arson and 
larceny. 

The question does not make so specific a claim as has 
been here alleged, but we accept that interpretation — 
viz., there should be a National Prohibition Party, and 
the Liquor Traffic should come under Federal control. 
A speaker has attempted to prove here that such is the 
language of the Constitution that the National Govern- 
ment has no power to prevent the drink crime. The 
National Government ought, at least, to have power to 
go out of major-copartnership with the drink traffic. 



THURSDAY MORNIXG. 211 

While the Government derives a revenue of ninety cents 
on every gallon of whiskey that costs but seventeen cents, 
while the Government grants a tax-permit to sell, it ap- 
pears to me little less than insurrectionary for a State 
Legislature, in defiance of such Federal sanction, to at- 
tempt to prohibit the sale. The primary condition of 
Temperance reform is, therefore, Federal outlawry of the 
Liquor Traffic. 

Reasons why we must have a Prohibition Party to se- 
cure these ends are found in the character of the three 
prominent parties of the country. One of them is con- 
fessedly the whiskey party, and J. M. Atherton, Presi- 
dent of the Liquor-Dealers' Association, determines its 
Temperance creed. The other great party is the beer- 
party, and Brewer Sheridan Shook, of New York, ap- 
proves its articles of faith upon the Temperance question. 
The next is the cold-water party, and Professor Dickie 
may be said to be authority upon its platform. He is 
not in the liquor business, and he believes in statutory 
and constitutional Prohibition, State and National. 

In the history of this country it once before came to 
pass that men said, The Constitution is so sacred and in- 
violable that we cannot put away our greatest national 
sin. Slavery was pronounced a divine institution, in- 
trenched in the rights of the individual State and beyond 
the touch of the general Government. The Republican 
Party pronounced this doctrine a heresy ; was that party 
right in those days ? Then it is all wrong in these. 
States-rights are not more sacred than Federal perpetuity. 
If this Union could not survive " half-slave and half- 
free,' ' it cannot survive half-drunk and half-sober. The 
drink slavery, more withering and more damning than 
was the bondage of the African, is a National question, 
and must and shall have National settlement. 

But, gentlemen, as was said regarding the slavery ques* 



212 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

tion, when it was declared that the Federal Government 
had nothing to do with it, and that the Constitution 
would be invalidated if we attempted to suppress slavery 
in this country, Horace Greeley proposed, if that were 
true, to spit on the Constitution, and trample on it. And 
that is what I propose to do with our Constitution. If 
it has come to a pass in this country that the Liquor 
Traffic is to interpret the Constitution in its own behalf, 
and dominate this government, I am ready for my musket. 

The temporizing sophistry that has been propagated 
by some of the speakers of this Congress, finding vague 
expression in the cry, " Down with the saloons and the 
sale of distilled spirits," while it silently winks at the 
sale of beer and all fermented beverages, would be en- 
dorsed by all of the brewers of this country. I protest 
that, until, as a government of the people, we dissolve 
copartnership with this giant vice and outlaw the whole 
business, we cannot properly pray, " Thy kingdom 
come." 

The President : I cannot answer all the anonymous 
letters that pour in on me. I cannot do all the things 
that are asked of me — " Will the President please forbid 
the clapping of hands at every remark, as it is not cour- 
teous, and is very annoying V I don't know anything 
about it. I can't do it ; and that is an answer to all the 
rest of them. 

Mr. Nelson Williams, Jr., of Virginia, said : 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : I have come 
three hundred and forty-five miles to look into the faces 
of the Temperance people of this nation. And I want to 
first explain to you the position that I occupy. I am a 
Prohibitionist. Nay, more than that, I am a Total 
Abstainer. And I believe that the only way to get rid 
of this Liquor Traffic in this nation is by the Prohibition 
Party. I don't care anything about a Democrat or a Re- 



THURSDAY MORNING. 213 

publican. I am a Prohibitionist, and I wouldn't vote for 
my father if he was not a Prohibitionist. I stand here 
to-day to speak for the people of my State. I want to 
say that the plea is coming up from one and a half mill- 
ions of Afro-Americans of this nation for Prohibition. 
Why ? Because the people that I stand to represent here 
to-day are the principal sufferers of this nation on ac- 
count of this Liquor Traffic. And, ladies and gentle- 
men, I stand here to-day and plead in the name of God 
that this Liquor Traffic shall be abolished from the 
American nation. And we who live in the Old Dominion, 
you can count us as those who shall stand until God shall 
say, " It is enough ; come up higher. " And we firmly 
believe that, unless this Liquor Traffic is gotten rid of 
out of this nation, that in the course of a few years she 
shall be as the Roman nation of antiquity ; she shall sink 
down into oblivion. And I don't believe, as I stand here 
to-day, ladies and gentlemen, that the civilization and 
the Christianity of America can succeed with the Liquor 
Traffic. 

Rev. Dr. Kynett, of Philadelphia, was called upon to 
speak on the other side. He said : 

Mr. President : I am greatly obliged. I am not a third 
party Prohibitionist. I am a Republican. But I am a 
Prohibitionist. We must suppress the saloon. We must 
rid the country of the evils of the Liquor Traffic. We 
must annihilate the sources of supply, the distilleries and 
breweries. The parties in power in the several States 
must do it, or we must find a party that will doit. Isn't 
that the other side, Mr. President ? I have been laboring 
with my Republican associates for a few years past. I 
have been trying to point out to them the signs of the 
times. I have been telling them there is a popular up- 
heaval that will upset the thrones of existing political 
parties if they do not respond to the popular demand for 



214 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

relief from this gigantic evil. I have been saying to 
them, " Gentlemen, the prudent man foreseeth the evil 
and hideth himself ; but the simple pass on and are pun- 
ished.'' I say to my Republican friends, and the repre- 
sentatives of Eepublican papers upon this platform, that 
the American people are weary of the policy of suppres- 
sion. The great Eepublican organ of this city gave a 
little more than half a column to the entire proceedings 
of yesterday. 

The American people are looking anxiously to the New 
York papers" to know what this convention is and what 
it is doing, and they are looking almost in vain. I 
know the sentiment of a large section of the American 
people in this State, in Pennsylvania, in Iowa, in Kansas ; 
and I say to you that this Liquor Traffic must go down 
within the next decade ; and if the parties in power, 
having the opportunity of doing it, do not avail them- 
selves of the opportunity, we, the people of the United 
States, will find a way to do it. That is the other side 
of this question ; and I am very much obliged to you. 

Eev. S. H. Hilliard, of Boston, Secretary of the New 
England Department of the Church Temperance Society, 
said : 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : I am distinctively 
and decidedly on the other side from the majority of 
those who are present at this meeting, and it is extremely 
disagreeable to me to stand up here and say one word, 
because I know that any one who thinks as I do is in a 
hopeless minority. And yet that is the very reason why I 
want to come and say one word. I want to know whether 
this meeting is a caucus or a conference or congress. I 
understood that this meeting was called to be a practical 
Temperance Congress. It seems to me that, as every- 
thing has gone, it is simply and solely a caucus — nothing 
but a caucus. Now the first thing is, — Is that what v,#* 



THURSDAY MOB^LSTG. 215 

want exactly, or are there a great many people here in this 
hall who really do desire that every man who is truly and 
thoroughly a Temperance man, and is willing to devote 
himself, soul and body, with every energy of his heart 
and mind, to this work, as a glorious work, as God's 
work, to do it as a patriot and as a Christian, is to have 
some chance to stand by and with every other man who 
has the same motive in his heart ? Now, I believe thor- 
oughly that if there is only such a purpose as that in the 
heart and mind in this convention, that sooner or later, 
in God's good time, that purpose will be blest by Him, 
and that a work is going to be accomplished for the 
Temperance cause that cannot possibly be accomplished 
in any other way. And I stand up to plead for that 
simply and solely. 

The President : That is the whole intention of this 
Congress, brother. 

Mr. Eilliard : Mr. President, if it is so, I thank God 
for this Congress, and I believe that many of you who 
now feel that there is no room for anybody but those 
with one sentiment on a Temperance platform will 
come to see that there is room, will come to understand 
that you can work for Temperance with those with 
whom you thoroughly and totally disagree as to the 
theories of Temperance. But you will find that, as to 
the practice of Temperance work, there can be a thorougli 
harmony ; that you can take off your coats and go to 
work together ; that you can stand, for instance, in such 
institutions as coffee-rooms, in the midst of the great 
multitudes of those who are oppressed by the Liquor 
Traffic, and that you can work for them, and that it never 
comes into your mind to ask whether your next-door 
neighbor, who is working with you, is a Prohibitionist or a 
High License man ; that you can work with them month 
after month and year after year bound together by a 



216 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

true chord of sympathy which comes from God, and that 
you need not know what your theories on the subject of 
the best method of doing Temperance work are. 

The President : I think that the last gentleman ex- 
pressed exactly what was the intention of this call, or I 
am mistaken. It was to have a congress, and not a con- 
vention ; a congress, to be followed by a convention, as 
when church congresses ventilate the views of the clergy, 
and conventions formulate the methods of executing 
them. We are just ventilating our views, we are just 
uttering our opinions, we are just adjusting our convic- 
tions to one another ; and when we have done that thor- 
oughly, then I think we will be prepared for a conven- 
tion, which will have resolutions that will have all the 
thunder in them which the lightning of this Congress 
predicts. 

The next topic was, 

The Relation between Temperance Reform and 
Improved Dwellings. 

The discussion was opened by Mr. R. Fulton Cutting, 
who said : 

I should like to change slightly the subject of the ad- 
dress that I am to make to you to-day, and instead of 
speaking upon the general subject of the relation of Tem- 
perance to improved dwellings, let me rather call up the 
relation of the saloon to the dwellings of the poor. I 
should like to put it in that way, because the saloon is 
really the exponent of the Liquor Traffic, as we have it. 
It is the one great arm that that Liquor Traffic is using 
to enslave our people. And therefore I want to regard 
the saloon as the exponent of the Liquor Traffic, because 
it bears to the homes of the poor an intimate and very 
peculiar relation that I want you to consider with me. 

I quite understand, from what I have heard this morn- 



THURSDAY MORNING. 217 

ing, that I shall express views that are not at all in sym- 
pathy with this gathering, and I shall not attempt to 
express any views except those that relate to the dwell- 
ings of the poor in great cities, and on that subject I feel 
that I am entitled to speak and entitled to be heard. 

First of all, let me say about these saloons that the 
modern saloon, as we understand it to-day, is distinctively 
modern. In the ancient world there were very few 
things of that kind. Certainly in Athens, in the Peri- 
clean age, there was no such thing as a drinking saloon 
as we understand it ; and while there was drunkenness 
and dissipation, it was generally confined to the privi- 
leged classes, to the men who had gorgeous palaces in 
which they could entertain their convivial friends. And 
so it was largely in ancient Rome. There were wine- 
shops in Rome, and we read of terrible scenes, of orgies 
and of drunkenness, in the annals of Tacitus and in the 
satires of Juvenal. And yet, again, they were the orgies 
of the elevated classes, of those who had places where 
they could meet together and drink and enjoy convivial 
life. There was not drunkenness as a national vice in 
the ancient world, as there is to-day, because there was 
not the saloon. 

Again, those of you who may have visited that ruined 
city of Pompeii will remember that the wine-shop of the 
ancients, as represented by those ruins, was a very differ- 
ent thing from the saloon of this age. And, therefore, 
I say that we must regard the saloon as the source of the 
greatest evils that spring from the sale of liquor in this 
present age. 

Now let me say a word as to the dwellings of the poor. 
I cannot better describe the homes of the poor (and I 
'mean the homes of the very poor) than by quoting from 
Dickens. You will remember, some of you, that in one 
of his shorter stories he singles out a man from among 



218 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

the working classes, and describes him as the type of those 
whose wages are very small and surroundings very mis- 
erable. He takes a man who, by his daily toil, working 
from early in the morning until late in the evening, is 
barely able to pay his rent and to supply his wife and 
children with the insufficient food which they must have 
and the clothing which they must use. He can give 
them no social pleasure, no intellectual enjoyment. And 
this man lives in a dark, dingy, two-room apartment in 
the east end of London, surrounded by filthy streets and 
degrading associations. He sees his children growing 
up in these streets, his girls growing up amid all the im- 
proper, roughening influences of the gutters. And final- 
ly the pestilence comes to the city and fastens itself upon 
the city, and the rich take their families and go off to 
the watering places ; but this poor man is confined by his 
poverty to the tenement-house, and must stay there, and 
the pestilence comes and seizes on his family and takes 
his wife and children and leaves him there alone. And 
then the missionary comes in to see him, and you remem- 
ber his answer, " Oh, what avails it, missionary, to speak 
to me, a man condemned to residence in this fetid place, 
where every sense is tortured and every minute of my 
life does but add mire to the heap 'neath which I lie op- 
pressed ? Give me my first glimpse of heaven ; let me 
have some of its light and air. Give me pure water. 
Help me to be clean. Lighten this heavy burden beneath 
which our spirits sink and we become the hopeless crea- 
tures which you find us. Then will I listen to Him 
whose thoughts were so much for the poor, and who had 
compassion on all human sufferings." 

There are thousands and ten thousands in this great 
city living like that, without hope in this world, in misery 
and squalor — men who come home from their daily toil 
to sit down in their little cramped apartment, surrounded 



THURSDAY M0R2UNG. 219 

by their wife and children, and they find the air close 
and hot with the atmosphere of cooking ; they dare not 
open the window to let in the winter's air, because they 
must economize their coal, and heat is precious. They 
sit down there, and have their supper by seven o'clock, 
and they have two hours on their hands before they need 
rest— two hours for intellectual enjoyment and social 
pleasure ; and they are coufined to these little, narrow 
homes in which to spend them, where the air is hot and 
uncomfortable, where they have not sufficient cubic feet 
of air to supply them with the proper breathing space. 
The atmosphere is exhausted. The children are going 
to sleep in the only room they have to sit in, and that is 
crowded. Will you say to these men that they must for- 
ever occupy those rooms ? Will you do nothing for them 
except prohibit liquor, or will you try to lessen their 
woes ; will you try to give them some place where they 
can enjoy those social attributes that are born into every 
man ? 

Now look at the saloon, on the other hand. I am not 
exaggerating this question of the homes of the poor. I 
will show you these homes myself. I will show you homes 
in which, if you and I should be forced to live, we would 
be glad enough to go into a liquor saloon to get out of 
them. Look at the saloon. Here is a place brilliantly 
lighted, large and spacious. It has easy-chairs, and a 
polished bar, and shining glasses, and the convivial bar- 
keeper, and the circle of friends who come in there. I 
has its genial hospitalities. And it is a place of that 
kind to which these poor fellows, confined to the mis- 
eries of their tenement-house life, go in such enormous 
numbers. And shall we close these saloons absolutely, 
and give them nothing else ? Lest I should be misun- 
derstood, let me say this, first of all : that in the pres- 
ent circumstances of life, I believe in Total Abstinence, 



220 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

and have been for years myself a Total Abstainer. But 
let me say, further than this, friends, as I know about 
the life of these men, with these narrow opportunities 
for social enjoyment, that if I could in one single instant 
crush every saloon in this city (and I hate those saloons 
as much as you do) I would not do it, until we can build 
some place where they can live, until we house human 
beings not like animals, but like men. Until we give 
them people's palaces, and places where they can obtain 
some social entertainment, I would not close every liquor 
saloon in this city. There are saloons in this city, I be- 
lieve, that, while founded upon the principles of utter 
selfishness, while seeking only to transfer the wages of 
the working man into the pockets of the liquor-seller, 
have been an actual benefaction to the working classes. 
Actually a fact, I believe, sir. I believe that in the 
places in which these men live more sin and misery 
would have sprung if there had not been some saloons. 
I would not blot them out until we have something else 
to give them. When you and I sit in our comfortable 
homes and enjoy comfortable surroundings, we are con- 
tent to stay at home. What shall we think of the poor 
man who has no comforts at home, who has no place in 
which to enjoy such social pleasures as you and I have ? 
Now let me say a word further about these saloons. 
You understand that I am no advocate of beer and wine, 
having been for years a Total Abstainer. But let me say 
that I believe that we must do more than we are doing — 
simply trying to prohibit the saloons. I may say that I 
am a High License man. I want to see them cut down, 
and have their fangs torn out. I was not here at the 
discussion yesterday, but I understand that my friend, 
Dr. Huntington, practically gave my whole line of 
thought in this connection— Improved Dwellings for the 
Poor ; Some Substitute for the Saloon ; and Warfare 



THURSDAY MORXIKG. 221 

against the Four Great Liquors. Now I wish to ask, 
Mr. President, whether it is not possible to succeed in 
gaining some legislation against the hard liquors. If 
we could absolutely prohibit, first, the sale of hard 
liquors, it would remove the greatest danger that arises 
from the use of beer and wine ; because, as I understand 
it, the use of beer and wine is chiefly dangerous from the 
fact that it encourages the appetite for hard liquor. I 
have spent a whole winter in the south of Italy without 
ever seeing a single drunken man or drunken woman. 
Not that there were not wine-shops, plenty of them ; not 
that I have not seen the men go in and drink ; but I 
have not seen a single drunken man or woman during a 
whole winter in the south of Italy. If we could obliter- 
ate the sale of hard liquors, many of the saloons might 
still be left open to supply these men with the opportu- 
nities of social enjoyment, where they could get nothing 
more than beer and wine, and where the taste that might 
be a taste for beer and wine would never be gratified by 
anything more than that. I simply want to suggest that 
before I say a few words, in closing, about what im- 
proved dwellings really mean. 

There are in this city quite a number of improved 
dwellings — very insignificant, however, in comparison 
with the absolute need of the people. There are large 
buildings at Tenth Avenue, Seventieth and Seventy-first 
streets, covering the whole block ; also at Fourteenth 
Street and Avenue C, and the Sloane Buildings, in Mul- 
berry Street. Perhaps I can indicate best the features of 
these buildings by speaking of the Sloane buildings on 
Mulberry Street. They are the smallest of all. They 
are situated in the very centre of human degradation, 
right in the Italian quarter. They have been occupied 
seven or eight years almost wholly by Italian tenants. 
In that quarter of the city the landlords sometimes di- 



222 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

vide rooms in two by a chalk line, and let half to one 
family and half to another. Go from those buildings 
into these new buildings of the Sloanes, and you will be 
perfectly amazed to find yourself in the midst of a real 
paradise. The women keep their apartments neat and 
clean — surprisingly so, considering the degradation from 
wiiicb they have come — many of them without any ideas 
of cleanliness and order. But they have been educated 
to it by those buildings and their agents, until you re- 
alize why it is that in these homes a workman can stay 
at home. If we could give such dwellings to the poor, 
we never would need a saloon, if such saloon were al- 
lowed to exist at all. People are never turned out of 
those buildings for intemperance. Intemperance may 
scarcely be said to exist. Of course, people do drink 
here and there, but when we compare these buildings with 
the buildings beside them, in the matter of rent, payment, 
and intemperance, the contrast is striking. 

I make my plea, then, for improved dwellings for the 
poor ; and I never shall be satisfied with any Temperance 
movement that simply says to my poor brother, u You 
must go on living in these poor dwellings, in a fetid at- 
mosphere, in close, confined surroundings, without pure 
light and air or pure water, until you become, as Dick- 
ens says, the hopeless, indifferent creature that we find 
you. I shall never be satisfied with any Temperance 
movement that has not that connected with it so closely 
that when it says, " Prohibit,' ■ it says at the same time, 
" Let us give what men deserve, what men must have, if 
we would ever make them men at all." 

The President read the following communication from 
Algona, la. : 

To the Temperance Congress : Greeting from the W. C. 
T. U. of Iowa : In solid ranks let us battle the drink 
habit and the drink traffic ; our watchword, " In essen- 



THURSDAY MORNING. 223 

tials, unity ; in non-essentials, tolerance ; in all things, 
charity ; in God's good time, victory J" 

Mary J. Aldrich, 
Corresponding Secretary, Cedar Rapids, la. 
Also the following, from Ossian, Ind. : 
To the National Temperance Congress : We will look to 
your Congress with great expectations. We are with 
you for the protection of the home. We will stop short 
of nothing less than Constitutional Prohibition for the 
Nation, May God speed the right ! 

Ossian Gospel Temperance Alliance. 

Rev. H. Bridge, 1 

C. E. Dudley, \ Committee. 

L. F. Chalfant, j 

Also the following, from Evanston, 111. : 
To the National Temperance Congress : The Evanston, 
111., Better Day Reading Circle, sends hopeful greeting. 

See Esther 4 : 14. 

Henry A. Delano. 

The passage reads, " For if thou altogether holdest 
thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and 
deliverance arise to the Jews from another place ; but 
thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed : and who 
knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such 
a time as this V ' 

Also from Warren, Pa. : 

To the National Temperance Congress : Grand Lodge of 
Good Templars in ; session, Greeting : We wish you God- 
speed and success in your convention. 

Harry Dean, 
Ellen S. Southworth, 
S. B. Chase, 
W. H. Morgan. 



224 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS, 

Also from Worcester, Mass. : 

To the National Temperance Congress : Bishop H. M. 
Turner, who is sick with a fever, cannot be present to- 
night to speak upon Temperance. He begs you to get 
him a representative. He says he is with you soul and 
body, and will work for the party. 

W. H. Barry. 

Also the following letter from Rev. Dr. T. L. Cuyler : 
To the National Temperance Congress. 

Dear Fellow- Workers : I deeply regret that en- 
gagements in this part of the State prevent me from 
being with you. If I were there, I should urge the im- 
perative importance of a fresh process of sub-soiling 
education of the popular mind by pulpit, platform, and 
press. A fight with the accursed saloons and distilleries 
is not wide enough. We must strike at the drink itself, 
wherever it shows its head, and strive to uproot the 
drinking usages. 

There is a good old " original package" called the 
Total Abstinence Pledge, which has done glorious service 
in the past. It has had the sanction and blessing of the 
" Supreme Court" of Heaven ! Let us try it again ! 

May the spirit of wisdom and brotherly love make your 
Conference powerful and memorable ! 

Ever yours for the good old cause — long and strong. 

Theodore L. Cutler, 
President of National Temperance Society. 

Auburn, K Y., June 10, 1890. 

Rev. Albert G. Lawson, D.D., of Boston, continued 
the discussion upon Improved Dwellings. He said : 

Mr. President : For some four or five years past I have 
been permitted to see underground Boston. There is a 
very excellent proverb of progress that the Apostle Paul 



THURSDAY MORNING. 225 

has given us in his letter to the Thessalonians. He bids 
us both hold fast and let go. " Hold fast that which is 
good ; abstain from that which is evil.'- Scientists tell 
us that our walking is a process or series of stumblings 
and recoveries. We understand as Temperance men, we 
are to hold fast to certain things. We are to hold fast 
to that Total Abstinence principle which, as a boy, I 
thank God I was led to put my hand and heart to. We 
are to hold fast to Prohibition, through and through, in 
city and town and State and Nation. We are to hold fast 
to the recognition of this also, that except as God helps 
us all our help is in vain. But we are also to remember 
that, as the body is made up of many parts, as every 
character is the outcome of forces from many different 
directions and of various power, so also the Temperance 
Reform includes many and various elements, and we 
never can expect to have success by running holding 
our eyes to any one narrow line. I understand the rela- 
tion of improved dwellings not to be the first thing, the 
fundamental thing, and yet a very vital thing. We look 
across the water and see London and those great cities. 
We are coming to have in our own land a mass of 
Christian men and women here absolutely ignorant of 
what the facts are in their own land — many in this 
very city absolutely ignorant of what is in this city, 
where I spent most of my life until within the past five 
years. And so also in Boston we are having families 
upon families living in a single room, with all the wretch- 
edness, with all . the drunkenness, with all the lack of 
proper air that they are having on the other side of the 
water. What is the result ? Just as Mr. Cutting has 
said. Let us remember, you and I live in more than one 
room. If we want to invite friends, we usually have one 
room reserved for those who come in. We call it a sit- 
ting-room or parlor or what-not. Thousands of these 



226 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

families of workmen have no such room. I do pity the 
poor wives and the children ; and yet I don't believe I 
should do other, with their training and with their sur- 
roundings, than many of these mechanics do, who, when 
their day's work is over and they come back to the little 
narrow, stifling quarters, and have eaten their supper, 
stroll out and go somewhere, to an open, lighted place, 
that offers them the opportunity of social intercourse. 
It is the only club-room that the mechanics have. And, 
therefore, now I would say to wealthy men, Do this. 
Mr. Pratt has put up a building in Brooklyn, which he 
calls the Astral. For every portion of the widely sepa- 
rated building there is a chapel or Come-in-room. Let 
wealthy men put up their best tenements, not in the bet- 
ter places, but in the lower streets, where the poor are ; 
for their elevation must be gradual. In every building 
put a Come-in-room, with music, with tables for games, 
with opportunities for conversation, opportunities for 
social contact. Then we shall have done a little, at least, 
to destroy this tyranny of the saloon, 

Mr. Robert Graham, of New York, said : 
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : Mr. Fulton Cut- 
ting, who read the paper to which you listened with such 
intense silence, very different from your previous en- 
thusiasm, is not a theorist ; and he is a very uncommon 
man in the United States, because he is an eminently 
modest man. I want to say for him what he did not say 
for himself, that the man who, looking at the seamy side 
of New York life (and it has a seamy side), puts his 
hand in his own pocket and influences other men of like 
mind with himself, and spends $500,000 in improving 
the condition of the poor, ought to have had something 
more than a silent reception at the hands of this Con- 
gress. 

I just heard read a telegram which said, " Protect the 



THURSDAY MORNING. 227 

home." Ladies and gentlemen, you have got to give a 
vast mass of the people of New York homes to protect 
before they can protect them. Let me give you one pic- 
ture. I think I know the lower side of New York as 
well as I know the fingers on my own right hand. It 
has been an eight years' work with me. There is one 
particular place in the city of New York, which lies at 
the corner of Elizabeth Street and Mott Street. It is a 
building six stories high. There is a broad flagged hall- 
way right up the centre, and there are blocks of rooms 
running right and left from that central hallway. The 
first room gets a dim light from the window in the corri- 
dor. The second gets a still dimmer light. The third 
is dark. And in that place, in the very centre of New 
York civilization and of New York City life, you have 
a population, all told, under that single roof, of 568 souls. 
How are they constituted ? Two of them were English, 
two of them were American ; the 564 balance were di- 
vided among ten different nationalities. For the past 
year I have attempted an order of mission work in a part 
of New York near Forsyth Street. I took a census of 
the eight blocks that lay around the little church where 
I endeavored to do some work. This is what I found 
there. There were, within that area, five public schools. 
There were, within that area, two churches, one a Prot- 
estant Episcopal Church, holding three hundred, and the 
other a large Jewish synagogue. There were, within the 
same area, sixty-two licensed liquor-saloons. And I call 
upon you men who shout so loudly for Prohibition, and 
say, " Sweep away the saloon" — brethren, when a man has 
to face this in a practical way, and know that he has his 
enemies, these sixty-two men, who try to hinder, he 
doesn't want to wait twenty years for the millennium of 
Prohibition. He wants something that will blot out of 
existence at least fifty-six out of the sixty-two. He can 



228 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

fight tbe six, but not the sixty- two. That is the reason 
why I believe in Restriction, and not in Prohibition. 

The President: By reason of a matter over which no 
one here has any control, for the first time we vary the 
programme. Instead of taking the Canadian Experi- 
ment, we shall have the pleasure of hearing from our 
brothers and cousins across the sea a statement of 

The Temperance Reform in Great Britain, 

by Mr. Robert Rae, the Secretary of the National Tem- 
perance League of Great Britain, who has already been 
presented. 

Mr. Rae spoke as follows : 

Ladies and Gentlemen : I should have been very con- 
tented to have remained a silent spectator of these inter- 
esting proceedings, as I came to hear and not to talk. 
However, I feel obliged to the Committee of Management 
for the invitation which they have kindly extended to 
me to say a few words in regard to the Temperance move- 
ment in what you call the old country. I have learned 
much during the discussions that have taken place at 
these sittings. I have formed certain impressions, but 
have not as yet reached any very definite conclusions. I 
hope to do so before your proceedings are at an end ; and 
it would certainly be very impertinent in one who knows 
so little of your local matters, to presume to express any 
opinion respecting them. 

Upon one point, however, I am tolerably well informed, 
and that is, the condition and prospects of the Temper- 
ance cause in Great Britain. I have been connected with 
the National Temperance League, the headquarters of 
which are in London, for a period of twenty-nine years, 
during which time I have been closely associated with its 
various departments of work. That association is of a 
somewhat general character. It is non-political and un- 



THURSDAY MORKING. 229 

sectarian. By " non-politicaP ' I do not mean that we 
have not men connected with it who take a great interest 
in political movements ; but we have all shades of opin- 
ion in regard to politics as we have in regard to religion. 
We have, for example, as our President, at the present 
time, the Lord Bishop of London, a stalwart man in this 
great Temperance movement ; and his predecessor in the 
office was an eminent member of the Society of Friends, 
Mr. Samuel Bowley. So you see that from the one end 
of the pole to the other we are represented in the relig- 
ious world. We have on our Vice-presidents' list not 
only the name of Archdeacon Farrar and Canon Wilber- 
force, but we have also Mr. Spurgeon, and men who hold 
a similar position with him in the ecclesiastical world. 
We have also scientists, like Dr. Richardson and Dr. 
Norman Kerr. We have members of Parliament, like Mr. 
William Caine, who is at present leading the great anti- 
saloon crusade in the House of Commons ; and, although 
not officially connected with us, we have had Sir Wil- 
fred Lawson upon our platform frequently. We have 
also had Cardinal Manning. In fact, there is no phase 
of religious or political opinion in Great Britain that is 
not represented in the association with which I have the 
honor to be connected. 

I need scarcely tell you that, with such a basis, we aim 
at reaching all classes in the community. Our work 
has been chiefly of an educational character. We at- 
tempted, first of all, to reach the various churches. 
Nearly thirty years ago we approached the Church of 
England. We had a hand in forming the Church of 
England Total Abstinence Society, when it existed under 
its original basis of Total Abstinence from intoxicating 
liquors. Many of you are probably aware that some 
years afterward the Constitution of the Society was en- 
larged so as to admit of the co-operation of non-abstain T 



230 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

ers with those who were teetotalers ; and since that time 
there can be no doubt that the Society has greatly en- 
larged its sphere of influence. The number of bishops 
associated with it is now much larger than it was in the 
days of its Total Abstinence platform, and the work 
which it is doing is of a very important and satisfactory 
kind. I may just mention in passing, however, that 
they have taken a position which many of their friends 
do not approve of, in relation to the Compensation ques- 
tion, which is now agitating England. The representa- 
tives of the Church of England Temperance Society have 
agreed to a compromise, by which the offer of compensa- 
tion will be settled in a way that Total Abstainers would 
not approve of ; and as the various parties in the House 
seem determined to carry this Compensation question, I 
have very grave fears that you will erelong hear that it 
has passed. The second reading, as you are aware, has 
been carried by a majority of seventy ; and that major- 
ity, I fear, is not likely to be much reduced when the bill 
comes into Committee, notwithstanding the very great 
demonstration which was held in London on Saturday last 
in opposition to those measures. That, however, is by 
the way. 

The Church of England Society, as I have said, is do- 
ing a large amount of very important and valuable work, 
and I can say the same in regard to our various dissent- 
ing denominations, as we call them, or Non-conformist 
denominations—a term with which you are happily not 
acquainted upon this side of the Atlantic. The National 
Temperance League took steps in regard to those denom- 
inations at about the same time as they acted with the 
Church of England Society, and we were instrumental in 
forming Temperance organizations in connection with the 
Methodist bodies, in connection with the Congregational 
Union, in connection with the Baptist Union of Great 



THURSDAY MOKNItfG. 231 

Britain ; and these societies are all now, and have been 
for some sixteen to twenty years, in active operation, 
permeating the churches with the principle of Total Ab- 
stinence, and doing a great deal to advance our cause in 
their respective denominations. And I may mention, 
without going into statistics, in regard to the number of 
ministers, that in the various Non-conformist denomina- 
tions about five-eighths of our ordained ministers are 
Total Abstainers from intoxicating drinks. In some of 
the smaller denominations the proportion is larger, but 
in some of the others it is a little less, and as far as I can 
form a conclusion from' the estimates which have been 
made, I think about five-eighths may be put down as 
the proper proportion of Total Abstainers among our 
Christian ministers. Among the theological students 
attending our various colleges the proportion is larger. 
Indeed, in some of our largest colleges, such as Mr. Spur- 
geon's, where there are about seventy students at present 
in residence, every man is a Total Abstainer. So that we 
expect that the rising ministry will be stronger even 
than their predecessors upon this great question of Total 
Abstinence. 

I was very much interested in the discussion that took 
place yesterday afternoon, upon Temperance in connec- 
tion with your American churches. I was especially in- 
terested in the paper by Joseph Cook — a very suggestive 
and thoughtful paper ; but it appeared to me that there 
was one link in his chain of logic which was a little de- 
fective. He spoke first of the Church being bound to 
recognize liquor-selling as a sin. The next position that 
he took was that members of Christian churches should 
not vote for a man in favor of the Liquor Traffic. Now 
I thoroughly approve of both positions, but I would have 
inserted between those two another position — viz., that 
the members of the churches should not only not vote 



232 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

for a man in favor of the saloon, but that they them- 
selves should not use the article supplied by the saloons. 

My idea is that, in order to constitute a traffic, you must 
have a buyer as well as a seller ; and I think it is rather 
difficult to proportion the responsibility that rests upon 
the one compared with the other. You all agree, I 
know, that the seller, if a Christian, is in a false posi- 
tion. But my contention is that the buyer is just as bad, 
or nearly as bad, as the one who sells ; because if you had 
no buyers you would not find many sellers. And there- 
fore I contend that, on this question, as it affects the 
Christian Church, we ought to come close home to 
the individual. Perhaps it may be that in your Ameri- 
can churches you have no members who purchase intox- 
icating liquors at the saloons. If such is the case, I can 
only say that I sincerely wish we had reached that posi- 
tion in England. I regret to say that in all our leading 
denominations we have men who sell intoxicating 
drinks, as well as a large number who use them. We 
have, even in the Methodist churches, class leaders, cir- 
cuit stewards, and others, who hold a license to sell in- 
toxicating liquors in connection with various groceries ; 
and at the head of our great religious institutions in Lon- 
don, in connection with our missionary societies, with 
our Bible societies, and with our various organizations 
for the spread of Christ's Gospel, at home and abroad, 
we have great brewers and distillers holding prominent 
positions, and whose position is unquestioned by the 
churches with which they are connected. That being 
the case, I take the ground, and I do it very strongly, 
that we have to purge the Church of those connected 
with the traffic, and purge it from all connection with 
the traffic, before we can have any hope whatever that 
the legislature will be able to put a hand to it. 

Thus much in regard to the churches. We have done 



THUKSDAY MORKING. 233 

a great deal in connection with the medical profession, 
as well as with the churches, in our National Temper- 
ance League. Nearly thirty years ago we began to adopt 
special means for the purpose of influencing the medical 
profession. Twenty-one years ago the National Temper- 
ance League commenced what has since been published 
once a quarter as the Medical Temperance Journal, setting 
forth the various scientific phases of this great question. 
At that time also we commenced a series of conferences 
with the members of the medical profession, during the 
Annuals of the British Medical Association, an associa- 
tion that corresponds to your American Medical Associa- 
tion, which holds a movable meeting once a year, about 
the month of August. It is held sometimes in London, 
and more frequently in our large provincial towns. And 
we have followed this annual meeting of the medical 
men, wherever they have gone, during the last twenty- 
one years, and have held, in connection with their anni- 
versary proceedings, a Temperance conference, at which 
our case has been presented by the most eminent men 
connected with our medical profession. Some three 
years ago we had the pleasure of welcoming Dr. Davis, 
of Chicago, to our meeting at Brighton, and he gave a 
most valuable address, equal to the paper which was read 
yesterday afternoon, to the medical men of England. 
Our next conference of this kind has been convened for 
July 30th, at the great city of Birmingham, where our 
president, the Bishop of London, will have an opportu- 
nity of addressing the assembled doctors upon the claims 
of Total Abstinence. 

It was also this association, the National Temperance 
League, which was the means of forming in the medical 
profession what we call the British Medical Temperance 
Association, every member of which is a Total Abstainer. 
The membership does not seem very large. About four 



234 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

hundred medical men have associated themselves in this 
society, and about one hundred medical students, who 
are attending the various colleges. That association 
holds regular meetings. Its President is Dr. Richardson, 
and many of our leading men are associated with him. 
We have also another society, called the Society for the 
Study of Inebriety — a subject, I think, which is perhaps 
more advanced in the United States than it is in Great 
Britain. The head of that society is Dr. Norman Kerr, 
who may be regarded as the Dr. Carruthers of Great 
Britain, and who adopts a great variety of means in order 
to impress upon the medical profession in England the 
importance of recognizing the physical aspects of this 
drink question. 

Our society also was the means of obtaining and of 
circulating what we call the medical declaration respect- 
ing alcohol, which was adopted by the leading physi- 
cians and surgeons of England,, in the year 1871. We 
had also the pleasure of enlisting the cooperation of 
Dr. Richardson, when he delivered the Cantor Lectures 
upon alcohol, which I believe are familiar to many in 
this country. He also prepared, at our request, the 
Temperance Lesson Book, which I believe has been ex- 
tensively used, especially upon this side of the Atlantic, 
both in Canada and in the United States. I remember, 
not long after we published that book in England, it was 
republished by your National Temperance Society in this 
city ; and the Canadian edition is also extensively cir- 
culated through the various provinces of that great Do- 
minion. So that I am inclined to think that this work of 
Temperance education in schools, which had a small be- 
ginning in England, has grown into something very for- 
midable upon this side of the Atlantic. Your growth 
has been certainly wonderfully rapid, and I congratulate 
all concerned in it, including Mrs. Hunt, who is to read 



THURSDAY MORNIKG. 235 

a paper this afternoon, upon the wonderful success (won- 
derful, it seems to us in England) that has attended the 
effort to introduce Temperance teaching in your various 
schools. We have made many efforts, but these have 
been met by great difficulties in England. Still, we have 
succeeded in obtaining permission from the school board 
in London, and very many other of our educational in- 
stitutions, to introduce lectures to the children attending 
school, and those lectures have been attended with great 
success. We have adopted one means (I am not sure 
whether it is in operation in this country or not) of inter- 
esting the children in these lectures. When a lecture is 
given by any one of our representatives in the schools of 
London, we offer prizes to the boy and girl in each school 
who will produce the best written reproduction of the 
lecture. The consequence is that the children take notes 
of the lecture ; they go home and compare those notes, 
they get the aid of their brothers and sisters in under- 
standing any points that may seem to them difficult ; the 
father and mother of the family are also called into coun- 
sel to assist the young people in preparing their reports ; 
and thus the subject becomes a topic of discussion in the 
family circle, and I believe in that way does a large 
amount of good. Then, when the reports are sent in, 
they are examined, as a general rule, by the teachers in 
the schools, and they award the prizes to those papers 
which they consider the best, and once a year we have a 
meeting to distribute the prizes that have been gained 
during the year among the different schools. Last year 
those prizes were presented at the Crystal Palace, with a 
considerable amount of eclat, under. the presidency of the 
Chairman of the School Board of London, And in this 
way we endeavor to diffuse a practical interest in this 
question throughout the various schools of the metropolis. 
Then, not only in regard to children and schools, but 



236 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

among the teachers, we have carried on a very important 
work. Our feeling is that no rules or laws that can be 
passed have a very practical effect unless we have the 
practical co-operation of the teachers in carrying them 
out ; and we find that unless the teachers are Total Ab- 
stainers they are not of much use in this system of Tem- 
perance education. The result of this conviction is that 
we are attempting, in a great variety of ways, to influence 
the teachers of our land. We commenced, some fifteen 
years ago, a series of conferences with the teachers, sim- 
ilar to those we have held in connection with the medi- 
cal profession. That is, wherever the National Teachers' 
Union has held its anniversary, we have followed them 
there, and invited them to a conference ; our usual 
course being to invite the members to breakfast, and to 
have the conference after the breakfast is over. Then 
we have also held many conferences in addition to those 
in our large provincial towns, such as Birmingham, Man- 
chester, and Sheffield, and all the principal towns through- 
out England. We convene the teachers of those towns 
at a special meeting — we generally have a cup of tea or 
something of that sort previous to our talk with them — 
and then, after our deputation has spoken to them, we 
invite response from the teachers as to the best and most 
practical methods of carrying on our work. 

In addition to those conferences we have also endeav- 
ored to approach the students in our training colleges— a 
very important class indeed. We believe in the princi- 
ple of catching the teachers when they are young, and 
hence we have sent deputations to our training colleges, 
and have instituted competitive examinations for the 
students in those colleges. We award, almost every year, 
prizes amounting to from £25 to £50, for the best 
essays prepared by the students in these colleges ; and 
we have during the last year extended similar competitions 



THURSDAY MORNING. 237 

to the pupil teachers in our various schools. 1 am not 
sure how far your system accords with ours, but I sup- 
pose your monitorial system would accord somewhat with 
what we call our pupil teachers. We have established 
competitive examinations among them, and we offered last 
year to the pupil teachers in London schools £25 
in prizes for the best answers to questions based upon 
Dr. Richardson's lesson book and other works of a simi- 
lar kind. These things have done a great amount of 
good in enlightening the teaching profession, and in en- 
lightening those who are to teach the children, and we 
have great hopes that in the coming time we shall get 
important and invaluable help from the teachers of Eng- 
land. 

Mr. Aaron M. Powell, editor of the National Temper- 
ance Advocate, said : 

Mr, President : I want to say just a word or two of 
acknowledgment and thanks, as an American, as a man 
interested in Temperance reform in this country, to our 
distinguished friend from the other side of the water. 
He has spoken to you of the great work of the National 
Temperance League, and he has said, " We have done 
so and so." While he has associated with him, in his 
Board of Managers, some very able and gifted men, the 
fact is, and I wanted to say it to you while he is here, 
that in a very large degree this exceedingly useful work 
is the result of the individual effort of our friend. More 
than to any other man in Great Britain is due to Mr. 
Robert Rae the credit of bringing to the aid of the Tem- 
perance cause Dr. Benjamin Richardson, Canon Farrar, 
Cardinal Manning, and others of those distinguished 
European advocates of Total Abstinence from all intoxi- 
cating beverages, and the prohibition of the drink 
traffic, on the other side of the Atlantic. We in this 
country suffer greatly from European influences. Our 



238 tfATIO^AL TEMPERAKOE CONGRESS. 

work here, as all of you who are here before me know, 
is immensely hindered by this flood tide of European im- 
migration. It adds greatly to the difficulties in our way 
in seeking to inculcate both the lesson of Total Absti- 
nence and the duty of the State and the National Gov- 
ernment to prohibit the drink traffic. But while we 
have this hindrance from Europe, we also have a great 
help in the uplifting thought of such men as gather 
about our friend in the prosecution of the work on the 
other side of the Atlantic. It was my privilege, in 1886, 
to attend one of the International Congresses summoned 
by the National League, and largely under the direction 
of our friend, where were present the distinguished gen- 
tlemen to whom I have referred, and many whom I 
have not named. And I wish you might have heard the 
very able papers and the very interesting discussion which 
those papers called forth on that occasion. Their echoes 
have been heard on this side of the Atlantic. 

Our friend has spoken of the British Medical Associa- 
tion, from which comes to us also, quarterly, the Medi- 
cal Temperance Review, which is the organ of that associa- 
tion, and which ought to be in the hands of every 
American physician. It is a journal unique in its charac- 
ter, and has no counterpart on this side of the Atlantic, 
I am sorry to say. We are in advance in many things, 
but we are behind Great Britain in the work it is doing 
in the scientific and the medical field. But I must not stop 
upon that. The London Temperance Hospital, the very 
significant figures of which we are fond of quoting on 
this side of the Atlantic, is one of the outgrowths of the 
work of our friend. There have been small beginnings 
here, but we have nothing to compare with the London 
Temperance Hospital and the London Provident Life In- 
surance Company, the directors of which, several of them, 
are also directors of the National Temperance League. 



THURSDAY MORNISTG. 239 

One single other point, with regard to that shocking 
traffic which we are responsible for, as well as our 
European friends — the importation of intoxicants among 
the native races of Africa. Our friends over there began 
the agitation to stop that importation. We have taken 
it up. It should be part of the function of this Congress 
to emphasize from this platform the importance of action 
by our National Congress to pass two pending bills which 
have been introduced within a few days, to prohibit the 
further importation of intoxicants from America among 
the natives of Africa. 

There are various other things that I should be glad 
to say. This I wanted to say while our friend was with 
us, that you might appreciate the significance of his visit 
and his work. 

The President : Julia Col man, who has been writing 
Temperance text-books that have been scattered around 
to the extent of a quarter of a million copies, will speak 
a few minutes on this topic. 

Miss Golman : We in this country are largely in- 
debted, in the Temperance work, to the Temperance text- 
books of the English. I have long been conversant with 
their work, and I can say from positive knowledge that 
they have prosecuted the Band of Hope work in that 
country much more effectively than we have here, for 
forty years, until perhaps quite recently. While we have 
made a specialty of the work in the public schools, and, 
as Mr. Rae very courteously remarks, we are ahead of 
them in that respect, I may say that we borrowed the 
idea from them in this practical work in the first place, 
so far as I can judge. I happen to know that twenty- 
two years ago it was first urged on the people of this 
country, and the leading men said it was impracticable, 
it could not be carried out. I am glad to say that our 
experience has proved, and the efforts of the Woman's 



240 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

Christian Temperance Union have proved, the contrary. 
But in looking over some documents in the preparation 
of an article for the press, some few weeks ago, I hap- 
pened to come across a reading-book published in this 
country in 1835 — a Temperance text-book for the schools. 
I don't know whether our brother can go further back 
than that, or whether they in England can, but it shows 
how these two great works go on side by side in the two 
different countries. I myself was not aware of there 
being any such text-book published in this country in 
1835 until that time. 

We need, so far as I can judge, in this country, a 
great deal of the enthusiasm they have there for personal 
effort in teaching the young. I am glad to say that it 
was a very large element in the Prohibition State of 
Maine, years before they really thought much about 
pushing local Prohibition. I am acquainted with the 
Hon. Joshua Nye there, who himself, for twenty years 
before I knew him (and that was more than fifteen years 
ago), had a Band of Hope that he taught himself, and 
had educated in it sixteen hundred boys, and they had 
grown up to be voters, and they were some of the voters 
that carried Maine for Prohibition. In order to have 
enthusiasm in this work, it is not sufficient for us to turn 
it over to the public schools and their teachers. We are 
too ready to do that. Oh, yes, we clap our hands for 
the education of the children, but we leave it all to the 
public school teachers, or are willing to do so, appar- 
ently — to the public schoolteachers, who, many of them, 
are not Temperance men and women. I honor them for 
the good work they are doing for Temperance. But 
they cannot communicate the enthusiasm to the young 
minds of this country that you and I could if we should 
take hold of it ourselves. We must gather the children 
together and teach them this truth with such enthusiasm 



THURSDAY MORXLKTG. 241 

and inspiration as cannot come any other way ; and we 
can do that in our Sunday-schools and in our churches. 

I mentioned that not long ago to a minister, and he said, 

II Oh, yes, the old thing, digging away." Didn't they 
get their members in just that way ? Didn't you and I 
come into the church because of the digging away of 
the ministers ? I don't know any better thing than get- 
ting into the right line and digging away ; and, for my 
part, I put into this work just as much enthusiasm as I 
can, and I want you to do the same. 

The following telegram was received from Mr. Foster, 
of Ottawa, Canada : 

To the National Temperance Congress : Regret that at 
last moment important public business detained me. 
Hope your meeting will be very successful. 

George E. Foster. 

A collection was taken to defray expenses, and the 
President announced that any surplus would go to 
Nebraska. 

The President read the following communication from 
the Committee of Arrangements : 

While we are engaged in the fraternal discussions of 
this Congress, there sleeps, in the Committee on Judi- 
ciary of the popular branch of our National Congress, a 
measure in which we all have the deepest concern ; for, 
whatever else may be said of the recent decision of the 
United States Supreme Court on the " original package 
cases, ' ' it has collided with the hitherto recognized police 
powers of the States, and the wreckage lies across the 
path of progress. The question at issue is one of the 
relative powers of the National and State Legislatures as 
determined by the Constitution of the United States. 
The Senate has, with commendable promptness, passed 
a measure known as the " Wilson Bill," which would 
afford the relief to the police powers of the States which 



242 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

the Supreme Court itself indicated as possible, but it still 
slumbers in the House of Representatives. Meantime, 
the unscrupulous and rapacious liquor-dealers are mak- 
ing haste to trample upon the police powers of the States 
which have by restrictive and prohibitive laws sought 
to relieve their citizens from the acknowledged evils of 
this nefarious business. 

As the Supreme Court of the United States diverged 
from its usual custom to suggest the needed legislation, 
so this Congress diverges from the strict programme 
marked out by it, and requests that its officers, with the 
concurrence of the Committee of Arrangements, memo- 
rialize the House of Representatives through its honored 
Speaker, in the name of this Congress of American citi- 
zens — citizens also of States whose police powers, hither- 
to recognized and protected, are now ruthlessly invaded 
— to grant the relief needed by the immediate passage 
of the bill adopted by the Senate ; and also to petition 
His Excellency, the President of the United States, to 
give it his early approval. 

Dr. Deems requested all those in sympathy with this 
communication to stand. All present unanimously arose. 

Dr. Kynett : A few moments ago you announced that 
any amount received over and above that necessary for 
expenses would be sent to Nebraska. Two or three gen- 
tlemen from Philadelphia, who must leave this afternoon, 
have proposed to give a hundred dollars each. We think 
there are others in Philadelphia who will join in this 
movement. I have proposed to them that we designate 
Captain Wallace, Treasurer of the Union Prohibitory 
League, to receive their contributions, in trust for the 
purpose named ; and I trust you will name some one 
here in New York to receive contributions in this city. 
We hope to be able to get a larger sum by providing for 
the payment of the subscriptions in Philadelphia. 



THURSDAY AFTERKOON, 243 

The President named the Secretary of the Congress, 
Mr. Bogardus, to receive any donations in New York. 

THURSDAY AFTERNOON. 

The session was opened with prayer by Rev. Dr. 
M. H. Pogson, and songs by the Silver Lake Quartette. 
The first topic for discussion was : 

To what Causes is to be Attributed the Failure 
of the Prohibition Amendments in the Late Con- 
tests in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Rhode 
Island ? 

The first speaker was Mr. H. H. Faxon, of Massachu- 
setts. He said : 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : I have my speech 
all prepared and in print. I do it for the benefit of the 
hard- worked reporters. I never knew a man to make a 
poor speech, but he blamed the reporters for reporting 
him wrong. I have got it all printed, and I don't care 
how much they pitch into me after they read it. I will 
just say here, before I start, that Prohibition can be 
enforced. If there is any sceptic in this house that 
don't believe it, let him go to Quincy, Mass., and try 
to buy a glass of whiskey. A gentleman this forenoon 
told us about poor tenants. Abolish the saloon, and 
thousands of tenants will own their houses themselves. 

Mr. Faxon then read the following : 

I am glad that New York City was selected as the 
place for holding this conference, because the Devil has 
a large following here, and I believe in fighting his 
Satanic majesty at short range. 

Ii has been annnounced that I would speak upon the 
causes of the defeat of the Prohibitory Amendment in 



244 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS 

Massachusetts. The principal reasons for the failure can 
be given in a few words. High License had been placed 
upon our statutes a short time before the campaign be- 
gan. Many people were anxious for a trial of this new 
policy, and the city of Boston, with its vast political 
power, was determined that its treasury should be en- 
riched by the enormous sum of $888,308, to be thus de- 
rived from license fees. Prohibition will never be a 
success until all forms of revenue obtained from the 
traffic are abolished. Another important factor contrib- 
uting to the defeat of Constitutional Prohibition was the 
antagonism or indifference of almost the entire press of 
the State ; and while the Temperance people were handi- 
capped for necessary funds to prosecute the work, expend- 
ing only about $20,000, the liquor fraternity disbursed 
money without stint. Recognizing, then, the funda- 
mental causes of our defeat, what steps shall we take, 
what means employ to bring about ultimate success ? 
Long experience has convinced me that the policy of 
Local Option is the shortest and best road to absolute 
Prohibition. One of the strongest features of this law 
is that requiring an annual vote upon the question of grant- 
ing licenses. This yearly agitation of the subject keeps 
public sentiment alive to the best interests of each com- 
munity. Many towns vote " no license" by large ma- 
jorities, and then, after celebrating the victory, the 
friends of the law seem to consider the work done and 
their responsibility at an end, and settle back into a 
state of indifference and inaction, leaving the enemy in 
full possession of the field. The condition of such towns 
is deplorable in the extreme. Prohibition will never 
prohibit if left in charge of saloon-keepers or the average 
board of selectmen, or to those constables who vote 
u yes" on the License question. 

The law will mean nothing except there are officers 



THURSDAY AFTER^OOK. 245 

behind it who are in full sympathy with its provisions, 
and who will push it with energy to successful results. 
When I was first appointed special officer to enforce the 
liquor law in Quincy there were forty-two licenses grant- 
ed, with a Democratic Board of Selectmen, favorable to 
the License element, in power. In a few months, the 
climate had become so warm and disagreeable for the 
liquor-dealers and their constituents that the selectmen 
displaced me from office, fearing that some of their prom- 
inent political supporters would soon land in the House 
of Correction. Although my term of service, at this 
time, was brief, the people of Quincy needed no better 
evidence that I had done my duty than the complaints 
of the rumsellers that my methods did not suit them. 
The best citizens of the place, realizing the good that 
had been accomplished by the enforcement of the License 
provisions of the law, were ready to take a step forward, 
and at the next town meeting " No License" was carried 
by a large majority, the vote being 1057 to 467. Select- 
men in sympathy with this vote were elected, and I was 
again appointed to look after the dealers in the ardent. 
It is, perhaps, needless to say that the warfare against 
those offenders was waged without fear or favor. The 
sword of Prohibition was used unrelentingly, and during 
the first ten months of my career I made one hundred 
and ten complaints, resulting in more than forty convic- 
tions, including six commitments to the House of Cor- 
rection. Let me here cite some significant facts : 

The cost of supporting the poor for the year ending 
February, 1882, the last year of License, according to the 
report of a special investigating committee, was $15,415. 
Four years later the cost was only $5533. In other 
words, while the population had increased fifteen per 
cent, the cost of caring for the poor decreased more than 
sixty-four per cent. The deposits in the Quincy Savings 



246 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS, 

Bank in 1881 amounted to $184,143, "while for the years 
1887-88 the deposits had increased to $645,150. The 
District Court record shows that for the year ending 
September 30th, 1888, in the License town of Randolph, 
with a population of 3807, there were 143 drunks report- 
ed by the police, while in Quincy, more than three times 
as large, the number of similar offenders for the same 
period of time was 55. 

Under " No License" the real estate and other kinds of 
business in the place have materially improved, and the 
community has been much more orderly and law-abiding. 

The only way to make Prohibition a success is rigidly 
to enforce the law. What has been accomplished in my 
own town, now a city, can be realized in other places by 
voting ' ' No License' ' and electing faithful officials to carry 
out the will of the people. Not a License is now granted 
in Quincy, not even to a druggist, and there is no indi- 
cation that the citizens desire a change in the existing 
policy on this question. If the friends of Temperance 
will combine to demonstrate the great blessings and ad- 
vantages to be derived from the enforcement of the policy 
of Local Prohibition, its ultimate triumph in the State 
and Nation is not far distant. Local Option stirs up 
even the dormant energies of lukewarm Temperance men, 
especially when a town votes for " License" and the adjoin- 
ing town has ' ' No License' ' well enforced. Such has been 
the case in Dracut, Mass., where the only rum-shop the 
place was entitled to, under the limitation law, was 
licensed for a fee of $8000. The entire thirsty hoodlum 
element of the prohibitory city of Lowell was turned 
loose upon this place, and after two days' remorse over 
its wickedness, the town appealed to the Legislature for 
permission to refund the blood money to the rumseller 
from whom it came. The people of Dracut will not 
soon forget the sad experience they derived from their 



THURSDAY AFTER^OOtf. 247 

eagerness to get rich on the revenue from sin. If all the 
towns surrounding Boston would vote M No License" and 
enforce the law, all the bummers would flock to the city 
to get their liquor, and Boston would soon become a 
Dracut on so large a scale that the citizens would rise en 
masse to put the evil down. I feel that this matter of 
law enforcement cannot be too strongly emphasized. 
The towns and cities in Massachusetts whose officials 
have been most faithful in this respect are those which 
have continued to enjoy a prohibitory regime. 

In the last ten years I have expended a large sum of 
money in enforcing the laws, and have never called upon 
the town or city for a dollar of the money appropriated 
for my services. If honest, competent officials had been 
elected to cooperate with me in the work it would not 
have cost one-fifth of the amount disbursed. 

Nearly half the time I had to contend against the 
officials and the rumsellers of both Quincy and Boston. 
Those who desired to render the law inoperative would 
vote " No License," but at the same time would cast 
their ballots in favor of selectmen who they knew would 
oppose me at every point. Men of this class are political 
assassins in ambush. It is such action as this that has 
brought the statutes regulating the sale of intoxicating 
liquors into contempt. 

Another great hindrance to the enforcement of the 
liquor law is the present jury system, which is the very 
essence of injustice. With one rascal in the jury-room, 
all endeavors to see that justice is meted out will be set 
at naught. One dishonest juror can defy the unpreju- 
diced conclusions of his eleven associates, the charge of 
the judge, the arguments of the district attorney, the 
testimony of the prosecuting officer, and all those who 
had suffered from the criminal on trial. The modern 
jury is the refuge, of the vicious, the hope of the lawless, 



248 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

and the harbor of safety for every influential political 
rascal. The system must be revised or repealed. I 
would like to see a change, so that appealed cases might 
be submitted to three judges. 

Still another great obstacle in the way of bringing 
violators of the liquor law to justice is the difficulty ex- 
perienced in securing evidence. There are men who, 
though debauched by their intemperate habits, are in- 
clined to tell the truth in court, but who cannot bear the 
taunts of their companions in sin, and therefore commit 
perjury to shield their destroyers. "Who can solve the 
problem thus presented, and tell me why men, having 
been plied with liquor and robbed of every valuable they 
possessed, will yet go into court and perjure themselves 
to protect those who have thus maltreated them ? For 
the same mysterious reason, upon election days such 
depraved beings have often voted the ticket put into 
their hands by the same rum-selling manipulators of 
politics. 

The reason why the liquor-dealers of this country have 
been so successful in perpetuating their infamous busi- 
ness is that they always confront their antagonists with 
a powerful political phalanx. All the rumsellers and 
their whiskey-soaked patrons work together as a unit in 
politics, while almost the first thing done by an assem- 
blage of Temperance workers is to pass resolutions de- 
claring " we are non-political, non-sectarian," etc. 

They thus fritter away their most potent energies, and 
are handicapped at the outset in their intended work of 
reform ; for such resolutions plainly indicate to the ene- 
my that he has nothing to fear so long as the weapons 
of political influence are not hurled at this unholy busi- 
ness. Those who are engaged in the manufacture and sale 
of intoxicating liquors are firmly bound together by the 
strong ties of self-protection, and are on the alert to 



THURSDAY AFTERNOOK. 249 

manipulate any agency which will help them to resist 
every attack which the Temperance forces may make upon 
their so-called liberties. When rumseliers organize, they 
resolve that no candidate for office shall receive their sup- 
port who is not committed to their policy of opposition 
to what they are pleased to term " sumptuary laws." 
They care nothing for party or principle, and only seek 
creatures who will do their bidding. When ward offi- 
cers can count double the votes cast for their candidates, 
and thus elect them, it is called '* liquor dealers' expert 
politics." 

We should, in particular, learn a lesson from our foes, 
and become united on a common platform from which 
we can wage a battle that will prove the overthrow of 
the arch-fiend of Intemperance. It is the duty of all the 
representatives assembled at this conference to do all in 
their power to advance the cause — politically, religiously, 
and socially ; for without Temperance, politics is a 
cheat, religion a farce, and social life a curse. If we are 
faithful to the work that is before us, the day will not 
be far distant when we shall have reached the acme of 
our desires on this great question, We must use all the 
weapons at our command in defending our homes and 
country from the encroachments of this destroyer, and 
seize every opportunity that is afforded to take a step on- 
ward toward the goal of our ambition. One of the chief 
reasons why our cause has progressed so slowly in the past 
has been that many radical Temperance men have sulked 
in their tents, refusing to do anything except along the 
narrow path of their one idea. They have honestly be- 
lieved that such action would hasten the dawn of Prohi- 
bition. That they have been wrong is apparent, and 
such foolish conduct is hailed with delight by our oppo- 
nents, and is placed upon the profit side of their account. 

I am convinced that no political party can attain the 



250 NATIONAL TEMPEKANCE CONGKES3. 

summit of its aspirations by advocating only one great 
moral question. If we desire success for the cause so 
near our hearts there must be embraced in our platform 
other reforms that are recognized as equally important 
by those independent voters who will not be led by one 
idea. This was the way in which the anti-slavery cause 
was advanced — thousands of people who cast their bal- 
lots for Abraham Lincoln not caring a whit for the 
negro, and voting with Republicans simply because theirs 
was the best political combination. The Prohibitory 
party is exerting a healthful and restraining influence 
over the Republican party, and I desire to see it go for- 
ward until its noble mission is accomplished. 

It is a well-known fact that the Democratic party can- 
not be trusted to do anything which will advance Tem- 
perance and morality. If there is any conscience in that 
organization, it is kept very carefully concealed by its 
leaders. All their platform orators ignore the question 
of Prohibition, except to reiterate the old cry that it can- 
not be enforced. Democratic rumsellers know that their 
security is assured if police and other officials of their 
own political faith are appointed through their influence. 
The guardians of the peace, whose free drinks are fur- 
nished by those whom they are expected to detect in vio- 
lations of the law, will be careful not to cut off their 
own supplies. The Democratic party is composed of the 
political sewage of almost every nation on the globe, and 
it seems instinctive for a large percentage of this class, 
especially the Irish, to shout for Democracy and free 
rum. The whole history of the party is one of disaster, 
because its hopes are founded upon dramshop support. 
Principles which are run through a whiskey distillery 
will not stand fire in the day of political judgment. 
The Republican party was once the medium of true re- 
form, but of late its leaders busy themselves in citing the 



THURSDAY AFTERtfOOK. 251 

valiant deeds achieved by their fathers and grandfathers 
in order to bolster up its waning glory. Both the great 
parties are floating on the raft of sentimentalism, and 
the least puff of a virtuous breeze makes the whole polit- 
ical fleet tremble. 

In the present condition of affairs I believe the true 
course for reformers to pursue is that of absolute inde- 
pendence by voting for those candidates, wherever found, 
who represent their principles. Voters who stick to 
their party, no matter whether it be right or wrong, are 
hidebound partisans, and poor tools with which to work 
out any kind of reform. As for myself, I shall remain 
perfectly independent. With whichever party I may 
act from time to time, I shall stand fearlessly in defence 
of my principles, not only respecting the prohibition of 
the sale of intoxicating liquors, but also as regards the 
support and perpetuation of pure government, by purg- 
ing it of dishonest aod corrupt officials. 

Hon. Henry B, Metcalf, of Rhode Island, read the fol- 
lowing paper : 

Entrance upon the post of duty assigned me on this 
occasion is not an experience of unalloyed pleasure. 

Four years ago, a citizen of Rhode Island could have 
stood before such an audience as this full of pride for 
his home and his citizenship. To-day his attitude must 
be of extreme modesty, if not of humility. 

Rhode Island has been made a stumbling-block for re- 
formers throughout the length and breadth of our land. 
She, alone in the family of States, after a brave declara- 
tion of independence of the rum power, has ignominiously 
surrendered to the enemy, and is, to-day, obedient to 
his commands. 

My duty, on this occasion, is that of witness rather 
than advocate ; historian rather than philosopher. 

In April, 1886, the citizens of Rhode Island, whatever 



252 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

their opinions, were surprised "by the adoption of Con- 
stitutional Prohibition by a liberal majority. Among 
the reasons why we, of the affirmative side, were not 
expecting victory at that time, were, first, because of 
the preponderance of city population in our State, and 
that largely of foreign birth. In 1885, the city of Provi- 
dence contained about forty per cent, of the population 
of the State, and the county of Providence about seventy 
per cent., and of this more than thirty per cent, was of 
actual foreign birth ; second, the principal daily papers 
of the State are published in Providence, and were and 
are bitterly hostile to Prohibition — one of these papers 
holds such long-established business relations to the 
people of the entire State that it commands public at- 
tention to a degree that a person not a resident of Rhode 
Island could hardly appreciate ; third, the officials of the 
city of Providence had, for many years, given abundant 
evidence of non-intent to enforce the conditions of any 
liquor laws, however mild, and the people had been 
sadly tolerant of this neglect of duty ; and, fourth, and 
perhaps worse than all else, we knew that social drink- 
ing customs had a very strong hold on that class of citi- 
zenship generally spoken of as " good society," and 
exercising a good deal of influence. 

But the campaign in favor of the Amendment was very 
wisely and happily organized and conducted. Thorough 
unity was attained, partisanship and all other side issues 
were ignored, and the friends of Prohibition were like a 
band of brothers and sisters. Calm arguments were 
presented, bravely and well, by the ablest advocates in 
the land. We were fortunate in the fact that the rum 
power belittled our strength, and did not put forth its 
work or its money until it was too late to save its for- 
tunes. On the immediate eve of election, the affirmative 
undoubtedly appeared to be the popular side, and it at- 



THURSDAY AFTERNOON". 253 

tracted a good many votes from that class of citizens 
who habitually float with the current, unburdened with 
convictions ; some of these pro tem. converts certainly 
surprised us. Of course, this class of alliance becomes 
intangible and invisible whenever a passing cloud dark- 
ens the horizon. 

Our new law took effect July 1st, and the immediate 
great reduction of drunkenness and general disorder was 
profoundly gratifying ; but when the enemy had re- 
covered breath and resumed aggressive warfare, all 
liquor-dealers, wholesale and retail, organizing for mutual 
defence with a degree of efficiency that would be impos- 
sible in a larger State, with prominent newspapers and 
leading officials discouraging to the utmost every effort 
to enforce the law, our weakness on account of a loss of 
unity among ourselves became sadly apparent, and golden 
opportunities were lost beyond hope of recovery. We 
had shouted our rejoicings for victory, forgetting that all 
we had done was to get our siege guns into position, and 
that the hard fighting was still before us. Issues were 
soon introduced by influential defenders of law-breakers 
that bewildered and confused our loyal people, and much 
of our strength was frittered away. 

I therefore note, as first among the reasons why the 
overthrow of Prohibition was made possible, that the 
defenders were never well united in working methods, 
did not understand each other, and, of course, wasted 
their resources. 

This experience being, in its character, not unlike what 
you have all had occasion to deplore, and the subject 
having been assigned an important place in the delibera- 
tions of this Congress, I narrate it only as a part of the 
record ; but with pretty thorough familiarity with the 
entire record of our battle, I assert, confidently, that if 
we could have secured and maintained a spirit of unity, 



254 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

concert, and mutual confidence, even among those who 
have never wavered in their loyalty to Prohibition, we 
could not have been beaten by even the mighty com- 
bination of iniquity, treachery, cowardice, and corruption 
that was arrayed against us. 

As to the good faith of the legislation immediately fol- 
lowing the Amendment, opinions differ very widely. 
Speaking only for myself, I do not doubt that at that 
time our legislators intended to respect the people's 
voice as uttered in the Amendment vote. But some 
features of that legislation, whatever the honesty of its 
intent, proved disastrous, because furnishing vantage 
ground for the enemy's forces which they were not slow 
to occupy and utilize. 

We next encountered, and were unable to cope with, 
the disloyalty of officials in cities and large towns, who 
neglected and practically refused to enforce the law, 
thus establishing a most effective alliance with law-break- 
ers. While a few of such executive officers were faith- 
ful to their trust, the many, when tried, were found 
wanting ; this falsity to official duty being especially 
marked in the city of Providence. 

I am well aware that I am herein making a grave ac- 
cusation, but I base my statement on official records that 
are open to the world's inspection. I could spread be- 
fore you columns of evidence, but my limits forbid. I, 
however, ask you to note that an official report of the 
Chief of Police of the city of Providence narrates that, 
during a period of eight months, his men arrested 2,946 
persons for drunkenness, and, during the same period, 
arrested only three for liquor selling, this being at a time 
when public records indicated the precise locality of 
several hundred law-defying liquor shops. Soon after 
making this report, he received the endorsement of the 
City Council in a reelection. Please note, also, that the 



THURSDAY AFTER^OOX. 255 

City Solicitor of the city of Providence, prosecuting 
officer on all complaints from the Police Department, 
and legal adviser thereof, within eight months after 
adoption of Prohibition was signer to a memorial to the 
Legislature declaring that the law could not be en- 
forced. 

The public demoralization resulting from such official 
disloyalty and cowardice made comparatively easy the 
final act in the drama. 

The attack upon the small State of Ehode Island by 
the combined liquor hosts of the nation was, primarily, 
for effect upon the then pending amendment elections in 
New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. These 
States were flooded with priuted falsehood as to Rhode 
Island's actual condition under Prohibition, and we had 
absolutely no opportunity to place the true record before 
our neighbors in season to be helpful to them. 

Finding that liberal cash payments could secure ready 
allies in Rhode Island, the combined liquor powers 
moved forward for the restoration, in that State, of a 
rum dynasty, purchasing freely, for cash, such agent3 and 
agencies as could be made most useful. Strictly under 
the management of only the rumsellers' agents and em- 
ployees, a large number of signatures was obtained to a 
petition to the Legislature for Resubmission, but this pe- 
tition bore very few names of men known in works of 
Christianity, humanity, philanthropy, or education. 
Very hurriedly a counter petition was prepared and pre- 
sented, the signatures greatly outweighing those of the 
former one in numbers, wealth, and social or business 
position. At least nine-tenths of the clergy of the State 
declared their opposition to repeal of Prohibition ; but 
the recognized managers of both the leading political 
parties had been purchased, and their arguments, what- 
ever their form, controlled a majority of the legislators, 



256 HATIOSTAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

and secured the first enactment providing for Resub- 
mission. 

A three days' session of a new Legislature was close at 
hand, and therein, in a siDgle day, under a suspension 
of the rules and without debate, the Legislature was 
whipped into a vote for Resubmission, May 30th, and an 
election was ordered for June 20th, thus outrageously 
shutting off all opportunity for popular discussion of an 
unexpected proposition to amend the fundamental law 
of a State. Even if the time limit had not been fatal to 
the defence of Prohibition, the fact that all of the best- 
equipped speakers were engaged in Pennsylvania, inevi- 
tably made the campaign of defence a comparatively 
weak one. 

You know the result. Without organization or the 
time to make it, without money or the time to collect it, 
and with a hostile press, however influenced, we could 
not promptly counteract the thoroughly prepared com- 
binations that were brought against us. Our little State 
was at once flooded with falsehood and traversed by 
corrupt and corrupting agents under every imaginable 
guise, and the defenders of Prohibition were buried 
under a heavy majority. 

In less than two weeks after the popular vote of Con- 
stitutional repeal, the Governor had his Legislature sum- 
moned for special session, and Prohibition was swept 
from Rhode Island's statute book, giving place to a 
License law framed by the formal attorneys of the liquor- 
sellers, being the meanest law of its class that has lately 
been enacted anywhere, and to-day drunkenness and 
general crime and demoralization are rampant in Rhode 
Island as never before. 

But I now beg you to note, as the most important state- 
ment that I have to make to you, that Prohibition was 
repealed in Rhode Island not because it was a failure. 



THURSDAY AFTERNOON. 257 

but because it toas not. That Prohibition far more than 
justified its enactment in Rhode Island (as everywhere 
else) is proven by unimpeachable testimony. 

After Prohibition had been legally in force for six 
months, the Providence Journal, then, now, and always 
opposed to Prohibition, testified as follows : 

" The most obvious result of the law is the abolition 
of open selling to any and all comers. Throughout the 
State the public saloon is reported unknown. This, of 
course, is a very decided gain. The temptations placed 
in the way of the young and heedless by open bar-rooms 
at every corner have been removed, and, in consequence, 
taking the State as a whole, there was a remarkable fall- 
ing off in drunkenness and cognate offences during the 
last six months of 1886, as compared with the correspond- 
ing period in 1885. . . . 

u In a word, the present state of affairs is this : The 
law has reduced the amount of drunkenness that wa3 
seen under the License system, and has so far conduced 
to trie general improvement of many hitherto disorderly 
localities." 

Six months later, at the end of a year's experience, the 
same paper published a statement of the arrests in the 
city of Providence in the year just then closed (under 
Prohibition), as compared with the last previous full 
year (under License), the reduction, under Prohibition, 
being as follows : 

Total arrests, all causes 33 per cent. 

Minors 36 " 

Assaults 21 " 

Brawlers, Revellers, and Disorderly 

Persons 38 " 

Drunkenness..... 37 u 

Common Drunkards 54 u 



258 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

For Drunkenness : 

Arrests in Providence in June, 1886 (under Li- 
cense) 515 

" " " " July, 1886 (under Pro- 

hibition). . 263 

Average for July of several previous years 651 

Arrests for drunkenness in Providence during last six 
months under License, increase over corresponding period 
of previous year, 18 T 3 o per cent. 

During first six months under Prohibition, decrease 
from corresponding period of previous year, 42 per cent. 

Total warrants from police court of city of Providence 
(all causes), for several years, as follows : 

1884 1885 1886 1887 

4,678 4,548 4,138 3,843 

In 1888, after three years of official disloyalty, the 
warrants crept up to 4,146, but were, even then, nearly 
ten per cent, less than in the last year under License. 

Taking the State at large, as represented by the num- 
ber of inmates of house of correction, official reports 
certify as follows : 

Average inmates during 1883, 1884, and 1885 224 

" " " 1886 and 1887 164 

Total number of commitments, 1884-85 1,056 

" " " " 1886-87 758 

Total commitments for drunkenness only : 

Average 1882, 1883, 1884, and 1885 343 

" 1886 and 1887 239 

All jails and prisons, for all causes other than State's 
prison offences, inmates : 



THURSDAY AFTEEKOON", 259 

Average per year, during 1882, 1883, 1884, and 

1885 1,527 

Average per year, during 1886 and 1887 1,361 

In the foregoing statements no reference is made to 
increased population, the figures being absolute. 

In conclusion, let me say that if you encounter any- 
where the statements, first, that Prohibition had " a 
fair trial" in Rhode Island ; second, that Prohibition was 
a " failure" in Rhode Island ; third, that Prohibition was 
" honestly" repealed in Rhode Island, abundant evi- 
dence is available to convince any honest inquirer that 
each and every one of these statements is untrue, and that 
the overthrow of Prohibition in Rhode Island stands only 
for a temporary triumph of dishonesty, trickery, and 
corruption. 

General H. W. Palmer, of Pennsylvania, being unable 
to be present, the following paper, sent by him, was 
read by the Secretary, Mr. Bogardus : 

Causes op the Defeat of Prohibition in Pennsyl- 
vania, June, 1889. 

Attempts to explain defeats are always melancholy and 
generally fruitless. If the failure to carry Pennsylvania 
for Prohibition were final, and the cause lost forever, 
then time spent in accounting for the disaster would be 
time lost. But as the war is not over, and as the effort 
will be made again sometime, there may be profit in re- 
counting the forces that were effective in compassing de- 
feat. 

I regard the contest in Pennsylvania as a preliminary 
skirmish, a kind of Ball's Bluff, which children now liv- 
ing will see turned into an Appomattox. 

I. The most potent of the causes of defeat was the con- 
trol by the enemy of the agencies that create public opin- 
ion. Out of 800 newspapers, less than 250 were openly 



260 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

for Prohibition, and these were of small circulation and 
limited influence. 

No great daily or weekly, having a general circulation, 
was on our side. Several of them professed to be neu- 
tral, and under that flag pillaged both sides without 
stint. As the opportunity for plunder was a hundred- 
fold greater from the brewers, distillers, and dealers than 
from the Prohibitionists, naturally they had the lion's 
share of space for the publication of their matter. 

In our campaign the fact was conclusively demon- 
strated that the business of publishing newspapers in 
Pennsylvania is purely a commercial enterprise. The 
newspaper columns are open to all who can pay the price. 
To Prohibitionists it was, in Philadelphia papers, fifty 
cents a line, which made the dissemination of informa- 
tion an expensive luxury. 

Undoubtedly the newspapers of Pennsylvania contrib- 
uted materially to the defeat of Prohibition. The old 
familiar lies, " Prohibition does not prohibit," u It is a 
failure in Maine and Kansas," " It hurts business," " It 
depreciates the value of property," '' High License is 
better than Prohibition," were reiterated in a thousand 
forms. They were furnished by the Liquor Dealers' 
Literary Bureau, and their publication paid for, at a price 
per line from ten cents, in country weeklies, to one dol- 
lar in city dailies, and the articles contained no mark 
discernible by the average reader to indicate paid mat- 
ter. They were falsely and fraudulently designed to 
deceive, and to the deception the great journals lent 
themselves for a consideration. 

Being a great public question, Prohibition was entitled 
to a full and fair discussion by the journals that profess 
to represent and form public sentiment. It was not ac- 
corded. If the truth could have been made plain to the 
people, the result would have been different. 



THURSDAY AFTERKOOX. 261 

II. Another specially injurious factor in the campaign 
was the so-called High License law, passed in 1887. By 
this act the price of a hotel and restaurant License had 
been advanced in cities from $50 to $500, and in bor- 
oughs and townships in a less proportion. The License 
money, which had formerly gone to the State, was by the 
new act apportioned between the State and the munic- 
ipality, thereby giving every taxpayer a pecuniary in- 
terest in the business. 

In Philadelphia and Allegheny, the power to grant 
licenses was conferred by this act on the courts, coupled 
with some restrictive provisions, which made the grant- 
ing of a license substantially discretionary. Under the 
new law the number of licensed houses in Philadelphia 
had been reduced from about 6000 to about 1400, and in 
Pittsburgh a larger proportionate reduction had been 
made. 

These reductions met the approval of the people, and 
a vast number of friends of Temperance were inclined to 
believe that the true remedy had been found. Sufficient 
time had not elapsed to demonstrate the fact, which has 
since been proved, that High License did not diminish 
consumption, or decrease the evils of Intemperance. 
Therefore, many conscientious persons who were opposed 
to the Traffic were led to believe High License a 
better remedy than Prohibition, and voted accord- 
ingly. 

The dealers were not slow to take advantage of this 
phase of the case, and to expend their energies in shout- 
ing for High License. They professed to be better Tem- 
perance men than the Prohibitionists. 

Another year's experience has demonstrated the folly 
of the High License experiment. The licensed saloons 
have been replaced by the unlicensed " speak-easy,' 1 and 
there are more places selling liquor in Pennsylvania to- 



262 NATIONAL TEMPEKANCE CONGRESS. 

day than ever before, and, as an inevitable consequence, 
the harvest of woe is more abundant. 

III. The ignorance and indifference of the people in 
some sections of the State may be mentioned as a cause 
of defeat. There is a kind of stupidity upon which no 
impression can be made. Neither preaching, singing, 
praying, argument, expostulation, literature, nor the 
tongue of an archangel could make an impression upon 
some of our Pennsylvania people. There was no use in 
trying ; but we did try, only to be voted down in some 
localities ten to ,one. In thirty of the more intelligent 
counties, Prohibition carried. In the others, nothing 
short of supernatural interposition could induce the peo- 
ple to vote Prohibition, and there was no supernatural 
machinery at the command of the Committee. 

IY. A powerful agency effectively used in the cam- 
paign for the defeat of Prohibition was money, collected 
in large sums from brewers, distillers, and dealers, not 
only in Pennsylvania, but in other States, and also from 
persons engaged in furnishing supplies to the trade. 

The funds thus secured were used to subsidize news- 
papers and local political leaders, to distribute tons of 
lying literature, and to hire men to work at the polls. 
Probably not less than a half million of dollars was spent 
directly and indirectly by the general and local commit- 
tees for these purposes. 

Less than $7,000 was contributed to and expended by 
the Prohibition State Committee, and probably $40,000 
would cover the entire amount of funds expended by 
local committees to carry Prohibition. It was like fight- 
ing a battle without powder. There was no lack of 
efficient workers from all over the United States, who 
offered to serve for expenses and very moderate com- 
pensation, but the treasure-chest was alarmingly empty, 
and many eloquent tongues could not be heard. 



THURSDAY AFTERNOON. 263 

V. The influence of persons not actually engaged in 
the business, but who were indirectly pecuniarily inter- 
ested, was a factor of considerable importance in secur- 
ing the defeat of Prohibition. 

The financial institutions, railroads, merchants, manu- 
facturers, and business men of Philadelphia, where the 
greatest majority against Prohibition was cast, were al- 
most solid in opposition. They said, u It will hurt 
Philadelphia ;" u No one will come here to trade;" 
" This will be a way station ;" " Property will depreci- 
ate, and our business will be destroyed." Like the idol- 
makers of Ephesus, who opposed the religion of Christ 
because it would hurt their business, the worshippers of 
Mammon in Pennsylvania opposed Prohibition. 

VI. Lastly and chiefly, Prohibition failed for want of 
votes. It wanted votes, because so many of the people 
did not want Prohibition. The real trouble was that too 
many are fond of drink, and do not intend to be de- 
prived of it. They are not drunkards. They believe 
the use of stimulants in moderate quantity to be useful 
and beneficial. They do not care enough for the welfare 
of others to deprive themselves of what they consider a 
harmless gratification. 

Avarice, appetite, indifference, ignorance were the 
agencies that operated to defeat Prohibition in Pennsyl- 
vania. The desire of makers of public opinion to keep 
business and get money from both sides made it possible 
for the enemies of Prohibition to lie it to death, espe- 
cially among people who hastened to be convinced 
against a measure that would curtail indulgence in a 
habit which they did not wish to abandon. 

Rev. Ira L. Cottrell, of Rhode Island, spoke as fol- 
lows : J 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : 1 come to speak 
a word to-day for the smallest and, I fear, the drunken- 



264 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

est and wickedest State in this family Union ; and yet 
tb ere are places like an oasis in Rhode Island. I come 
from a town that never in its history granted a license. 
I say that I fear she is the wickedest State, because our 
Master said of that traitor that it would have been well 
for him if he had never been born ; and of Rhode 
Island, I fear that she is the drunkenest State because, 
in 1886, she passed a Constitutional Amendment by more 
than a three-fifths majority, and in 1889 she repealed it 
by more than a three-fifths majority. "What may we ex- 
pect of her to-day ? 

I wish to speak of four points which, I think, were 
causes of the repeal of that Amendment. First, and per- 
haps foremost, the very thing that this Congress is aim- 
ing to accomplish in its assembling together on this oc- 
casion — harmony among the Temperance people ; for 
the want of harmony the more than the three-fifths vote 
of Rhode Island sunk out of sight before the two-fifths 
vote, and to day it is out-voted and out-numbered. 
Again, there has been that bickering and that embitter- 
ing of people that were good Temperance people against 
each other, so that they hated their friends worse than 
their enemies. I believe there has been too much poli- 
tics in Rhode Island. They thought that when they 
obtained the Amendment it would enforce itself. But 
law never will enforce itself. It must be enforced by 
the Temperance people of the country. Again, it was, as 
has been said by our Hon. Mr. Metcalf (and he is better 
and more honored, I trust, than the golden calf), that it 
was a popular thing to be a Prohibitionist, and the con- 
verts came flocking into the ranks, and men didn't know 
whom to trust, any more than Abraham Lincoln knew 
whom to trust when he went, in 18G1, to Washington, 
and a few mistakes at that time would have chronicled 
Abraham Lincoln a martyr four years earlier than the 



THURSDAY AFTERKOOK. 265 

event occurred. Rhode Island made a few mistakes, we 
suppose, and she didn't accomplish what she hoped to. 
Those politicians did as it has been said of another ani- 
mal on a memorable occasion : 

" It wriggled in and it wriggled out, 
And left the looker-on in doubt 
Whether the snake that made the track 
Was going south or coming back." 

And we found he was coming back. Another cause is 
the extension of the suffrage ; and I wish I could speak 
on that. I believe that America should be the ayslum 
of the world — Ireland, Germany, Italy, and all of the 
world ; and even China — to our shame. I don't believe 
that Christian philanthropy or charity demands that I 
should say to the foreign tramp who comes here to live, 
" Come into my home. My children are your children, 
my wife your wife, my home your home, and I will 
leave. ' ' No ; let us hel p them all by converting them and 
teaching them — the last of which I would enlarge upon 
if I had time. I consider as the root of all evil the 
money that bought the presses and bought the men, and 
the License money, that bought the taxpayers. 

Mr. Horace Geiger said : 

Ladies and Gentlemen : I am a Republican, and I am 
forced to tell the truth, and will tell the truth on all oc- 
casions, although it may strike very bard. 

In the first place, the failure of the Prohibition Amend- 
ment in Pennsylvania was caused by the passage of the 
Brooks License Law by the same Legislature that sub- 
mitted the Prohibition Amendment to the people. They 
never intended it to carry. We had been working under 
a License law, the fee of which was $50, for a great many 
years in the State of Pennsylvania. Anybody could 
secure a License who came up and paid the $50, and set 
up a few kegs in some little grog-shop. But when they 



266 NATIONAL TEMPERAHCE COKGRESS. 

found that restrictions were placed around the business, 
the Republican party, who were in the majority in the 
Legislature, were wise, very astute, very shrewd. They 
saw that by passing the High License bill, with the re- 
strictions around it, they would be able to forestall the 
Prohibition Amendment by giving the people something 
they had never had before. 

In the second place, the false issue was raised, High 
License versus Prohibition. There was no such issue in 
Pennsylvania. It was the submission of the Prohibition 
Amendment to the vote of the people, for or against. 
The liquor men circulated that statement all over Penn- 
sylvania, that it was High License against Prohibition, 
and got many of our good people to believe that such 
was the case. Dr. Kynett spoke of our daily papers sup- 
pressing the truth. They not only suppressed the truth, 
but they lied ; and they published double-leaded lies in 
regard to the results of the campaign in Iowa and in 
Kansas — the Republican and Democratic journals, both. 
I wrote to twenty-three district judges in Kansas as to 
the results of Prohibition, and found out that all saloons 
in those cities had been closed, and the drunkenness had 
decreased from eighty to ninety-five per cent, according 
to the judges that wrote me. Nevertheless, when I 
wanted to publish the facts, during my chairmanship of 
the Amendment Committee in Philadelphia, I was 
charged by several of the Republican journals one dol- 
lar per line — fifty cents more than General Palmer spoke 
about — which made virtual prohibition, as far as we were 
concerned, to publish the truth to the people of Phila- 
delphia. 

In the third place, we had no money to carry on our 
campaign. We had just about enough contributed 
through the whole State of Pennsylvania to carry one 
good-sized county for the Amendment. There are sixty- 



THURSDAY AFTERNOON - . 267 

nine counties in the State. We had no National Protec- 
tive Association at Louisville, Ky., to which assessments 
on barrels of beer and barrels of whiskey could be sent, 
and distributed in Pennsylvania. We had to rely on the 
good people of Pennsylvania whose hearts are interested 
in the work, and throughout that State, hard woi king as 
the people were, they secured the small sum of between 
six and seven thousand dollars to carry the Amendment. 
Well, in the bank of which 1 am a director myself, I 
saw the funds deposited of the liquor-dealers. One 
hundred thousand dollars, in Philadelphia, was deposit- 
ed by the liquor-dealers to defeat the Amendment. 
That was the reason we couldn't carry our Amendment. 
I am a politician myself. I am working for the Repub- 
lican Party. But, ladies and gentlemen, on Election 
Day, or before Election Day — about May 15th or 16th — I 
knew the Amendment was defeated in Pennsylvania. If 
the orders were not positively given by the key of the 
situation in Pennsylvania, tacit consent was given to the 
workers at the various polling-places to work, not against 
the Amendment, but to deceive the people ; to put upon 
the lapels of their coats a badge for High License instead 
of against Prohibition ; and many of the workers had on 
our badge on Election Day, as I went around to the 
different polling places, with the words changed. I 
hauled two fellows up for it — drove them away from the 
polls for doing it. For such reasons we were defeated. 
And you, friends, as well as I, know that no man can 
act in the Republican or in the Democratic party con- 
trary to orders from his superior, unless his head is cut 
off. These men were the very same men who worked at 
the regular elections. I have seen them time and time 
again working both for the Democratic and Republican 
parties ; and I knew that they mnst have received orders, 
or they would not have been given federal positions after- 



268 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

ward. Several of them that I know have received fed- 
eral positions since. I am very much obliged to yon for 
this opportunity for presenting the matter. 
Miss Anna M. Edwards spoke as follows : 
I did not expect to say a single word here to-day. I 
see my name has been sent up by some friends, and so I 
will not refuse to speak. You have just heard that if 
the truth could have been made clear to the people of 
Pennsylvania, the result would have been different ; and 
the politicians, because of their political rascality, pre- 
vented this, and so on. But, after all, friends, the truth 
remains that the great majority of the people of Penn- 
sylvania don't want Prohibition. They said they didn't 
want it. And why don't they want it ? Simply because 
they do want the stuff that these liquor-dealers have to 
sell. They might have been informed if they could have 
had the newspapers in their favor, if they could have 
had speakers sent, and money enough to carry on this 
work ; but the fact remains that they didn't want Pro- 
hibition. Of course, they wouldn't vote away the op- 
portunity to get what they wanted. 

A vast host of people not only in Pennsylvania, but 
all over this country — many of them poor, hardworking 
men and women — pay their scanty earnings into the till 
of the rumseller because they are under the delusion that 
beer is needed to give them strength for daily toil. 
They look upon beer as a very fair substitute for good 
food. And we owe it to those people to give them light, 
more light, on this question. The people are to-day 
perishing for lack of knowledge ; and not only the poor 
and ignorant classes, but our educated, refined people, 
intelligent on every other subject, are in multitudes of 
cases woefully ignorant concerning the nature and 
effects of alcohol. How many, for instance, may we sup- 
pose, who voted against these amendments, really know 



THUESDAT AFTERKOOK. 269 

what alcohol is ? How many of them actually believe 
that alcohol is a poison, and is to be avoided as arsenic 
or strychnine, or any ether form of poison ? They don't 
believe it. That is the trouble. They want liquor, and 
so they vote for what they want. And, friends, we want 
to remember this : the saloons in this country are not run 
especially for the benefit of drunkards. Very few saloons 
make any effort to secure that kind of custom. What 
these poor, poverty-stricken drunkards give in this line 
to support the Liquor Traffic is a miserable pittance com- 
pared with the vast sums of money which are continually 
being poured into the liquor treasury of this country by 
the great host of fashionable tipplers and respectable 
moderate drinkers all over this land. And it is the in- 
fluence and the money and the votes of these highly re- 
spectable moderate drinkers that the liquor men depend 
upon chiefly to make their business respectable, to make 
their trade lucrative, and to secure for it the protection 
of law. When a man becomes a Total Abstaiuer as a 
matter of choice and principle, when his heart has been 
touched by the sufferings and woes of those who have 
suffered from this cruel curse, when he has begun to 
realize that the very existence and perpetuity of our Re- 
public depend upon the complete overthrow of the 
Liquor Oligarchy, then and not till then can he be de- 
pended upon to work and vote for Prohibition. 

Colonel H. H. Hadley, Superintendent of St. Barthol- 
omew's Rescue Mission, New York, said : 

Mr. President and dear Friends : To what cause is at- 
tributable the failure of the Prohibition movement in 
Massachusetts and other States ? I want to refer to a con- 
versation that I had several years ago with Mr. A. H. 
Ritter, of Boston. He said, " You need never be afraid 
of the Total Abstinence and Prohibition fanatics captur- 
ing Massachusetts, so long as we are allowed to manu- 



270 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

facture and sell such good lager beer as we do manufac- 
ture." Since that time I have been converted. Halle- 
lujah ! If I was a Methodist, I wouldn't have said that ; 
but I understand an Episcopalian has a right to shout 
hallelujah whenever he pleases, while all the Methodists 
say Amen ! 

On behalf of the two hundred and fifteen thousand 
drunkards in New York, I stand here to say this. I was 
one of them. I was converted down at the old Jerry 
McAuley Water Street Mission. Glory to God ! And 
that is the only medicine that will do anybody in this 
town or anywhere any good that has any doubts about 
drink — the grace of God in the heart. 

Now, friends, look here. The river that flows through 
the workingman's home in this city, the river that flows 
down the throat of the little child, while its mother is 
at work, to quiet it, and makes a drunkard out of it, 
and makes it a slave to rum before it is eight years old, 
is not whiskey, nor brandy, nor rum, but beer. It is 
lager beer. And I want to tell you, dear friends, from 
what I know by a personal examination of eighty-one 
lager beer saloons and their books, and an analysis of 
their stuff, too, and a personal acquaintance among the 
brewers (and they are grand men, out of Christ) — I want 
to tell you that they don't need one particle of support 
from D.D.'s or editors of religious newspapers. During 
the past three years God has allowed me, every night, 
to go down among a lot of poor drunkards, praying God 
to free them from the appetite for rum ; and during that 
time I have seen sixteen thousand men come forward and 
say, lt O God, have mercy upon me, a sinner, and take 
away this appetite." Thank God, it is beginning to be 
known that He does do that thing for drunkards. Dur- 
ing that time I have seen many backsliders. Those who 
have backslid, dear friends, backslid through lager beer. 



THURSDAY AFTERNOON. 271 

Those who feel that they need comfort don't go to the 
saloons for whiskey, but they will take a little lager beer. 
u Have you stopped drinking, my dear brother V " Oh, 
yes, I have stopped drinking. I don't drink at all. I 
just take a little lager." That five per cent, of alcohol 
that pur dear Dr. Huntington (God bless him in every- 
thing but that !) spoke about yesterday — if a man wants 
a pint of whiskey, he will take twenty pints of beer to 
get that pint of whiskey. I have an acquaintance with 
many men in the liquor business. Many of them take 
their hundred glasses of beer a day, and the last day that 
I drank anything I took fifty-three drinks, the last six 
brandy cocktails. Do you suppose, dear friends, that 
that work won't wear out a man ? The man who needs 
moderation cannot be moderate, and the man who can 
be moderate don't need moderation. It is only one step 
from the moderate drinker to the drunkard. Who in 
the world ever heard of a man coming back from drunk- 
enness and stopping at moderation ? 

Mrs. Isabel G. Shortridge, of the Pennsylvania Non- 
Partisan Woman's Christian Temperance Union, said : 

Ladies and Gentlemen : It has already been said here 
to-day that the reason we were defeated in Pennsylvania 
on June 18th last was because we did not have votes 
enough. Now, my friends, I only want to say this, that 
there was a reason why we did not have votes enough, 
and I claim that the reason is this : that we wanted then, 
and we do still 'want to concentrate the Temperance 
forces of the great State of Pennsylvania, and all over 
this Nation, and get down to a practical common-sense 
platform upon this great issue, and then we will get 
Prohibition in the State and finally in the Nation. We 
want to fight the enemy, and not fight one another. We 
want more talk of the duty of the people, and less about 
party. We want more principle and less partisanship 



272 NATIONAL TEMPERAKCE CONGRESS. 

promulgated among the people. In some of the counties 
in Pennsylvania, where these objections were put under 
the feet of the workers, we were successful, and I stand 
here to tell you that I am sorry that that vote was not 
cast by counties instead of by State, because, had that 
been so, to-day in the State of Pennsylvania over twenty- 
nine of her counties the white flag of Prohibition would 
wave. Now why ? Because, my dear friends^ the peo- 
ple spoke in those counties. The people said, "We are 
tired of the saloon." There is not a man nor a woman 
in this vast audience who does not believe that the only 
remedy for this evil is not "Down with the Saloon," 
but the total annihilation of the Liquor Traffic. Take 
away the attraction of the saloon, and you will soon 
crush the saloon. So, my dear friends, what we want, 
then, is to work on this particular line, remembering that 
it is the duty of the Temperance people to work to over- 
throw this enemy of mankind, to work to overthrow this 
evil which takes down one dear boy out of every six that 
comes up among us. That is what we want to do, and 
that is preeminently what the women of this nation want 
to do. It is a work of education. We want no longer 
to discuss methods so much as the cause. We want no 
longer so much to follow leaders who, rilled with some 
personal ambition, worthy or otherwise, pushing them 
forward, may pose like saints and fight like Spartans 
until they reach the goal to which they aspire, and then 
very soon we find them in the ranks of the spoilsmen. 
We don't want so much to follow leaders like those, as 
we want to follow this great issue. And when we get 
down to this common-sense platform by working in the 
Temperance cause, being all friends, differing cheerfully 
and agreeing to differ as to certain opinions, we will then 
have the goal for which we all pray, for which we all 
work, very near unto us. What is method compared to 



THURSDAY AFTERNOON. 273 

result ? When I hear the different phases argued, I re- 
member a circumstance that occurred in my own city 
several years ago, in one of our Public Schools. An en- 
thusiastic teacher said to a boy at the close of the day's 
session, " John, you remain after school and recite this 
lesson. You have missed it' 1 — a spelling lesson. Said 
John, " I can't do it." Said the teacher, u You must." 
John said, " I can't do it." Taking her watch from her 
pocket, said she, " I give you two minutes to make up 
your mind to spell this lesson at the close of the session, * 
or be dismissed from the school and turned over to the 
authorities." At the end of one minute the boy looked 
in the face of the teacher, glum and scowling, and said, 
" Well, I'll spell the lesson, but I'll spell it sitting down. 
I won't stand up." Now, now, friends, we want to get 
a spelling-book in which we have absolute Prohibition, 
annihilation of the Liquor Traffic, and we don't care 
■whether that lesson comes to us sitting down or stand- 
ing up. 

Kev. C. H. Mead, of Hornellsville, N. Y., said : 
We have up in Western New York, in the town where 
I live, a groceryman who, a week ago, hired a lunkhead 
of a boy from the country who wanted to learn the gro- 
cery trade ; and the day after that boy went to work, the 
groceryman said to him, ' ' Johnny, you go there and 
plug up those rat-holes." And the boy went to work 
and plugged them up with cheese ! I see you make the 
application yourself. We have been trying to plug up 
the liquor rat-holes with High License cheese, and it 
don't work. Those fellows get fat on it. Now, in 
Pennsylvania, the very first thing they did after submit- 
ting the Amendment was to bring about that other thing, 
the Brooks High License Law. What for ? Plugging 
up the rat- hole with cheese. In Massachusetts, exactly 
the same thing. Now wait till I tell you. The great 



274 XATIOKAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

need in all these States has been to get the truth before 
the people. In every campaign it has been a short one, 
as a rule ; they have had only a little time in which to 
work. They needed all the energy and all the power 
and all the influence and all the information that could 
be packed into a very short space of time to get it be- 
fore the people. Now another thing. The fight in 
Pennsylvania was a right that belonged to this whole Na- 
tion. The liquor men realized that, and they poured in 
their money and their influence from every State in the 
Union into Pennsylvania. In Massachusetts they did 
exactly the same thing. All their power and force went 
into Massachusetts. In Rhode Island the same thing. 
And they have done that in every single State. It is so 
in Nebraska to-day. It is our fight just as much as it is 
the liquor men's fight. They are pouring their forces in 
there, and the wonder has been to me that we have not 
stopped to think of the mighty fight going on there now. 
It would mean so much to us if we had, every one of us, 
from all over this Nation, said, u This is our fight, and not 
yours. It belongs to the whole nation." Now, do you 
want to carry Nebraska ? Why, bless my soul, there were 
three men who said, a few moments ago, u If they will 
raise a fund for Nebraska, we will contribute a hundred 
dollars apiece." I received a letter from Nebraska the 
other day, saying, "I want to see this Amendment carried. 
It is down on my heart, so much so that I have gone to 
work and put a thousand dollar mortgage on my farm, 
that is worth thirty-five hundred dollars, and have given 
that thousand dollars to the Committee, to carry the 
Amendment." That is devotion. That is getting it 
down on your heart. Why, you have heard in this con- 
vention yesterday how they said that Omaha is the cita- 
del. I believe there is more corruption going on in the 
Liquor Traffic in Omaha to the square inch than any- 



THURSDAY AFTERXOON. 275 

where else in this nation, because the High License sa- 
loons and the dance halls are attracting the boys and girls. 
You will find more boys under twenty-one criminals 
than anywhere else in the country. You will find more 
girls under eighteen years of age who have lost their 
virtue, walking the streets, common prostitutes, or living 
in nameless homes, than in any other city of like size in 
the American nation. We want to clean out that cess- 
pool of corruption ; and I say that the best thing now 
to do, growing out of the experience of the past in Massa- 
chusetts and Pennsylvania, is for us here, this after- 
noon, this moment, to give these men who have got the 
dust down in their pockets a right good chance to give 
it to Nebraska, and say, " We will win that fight." 

The President : You can keep sending your contribu- 
tions up to the President during all the rest of the 
speeches this afternoon, and the President will not rule 
you out of order. \ 

Mrs. E. S. Burlingame said : 

A few words more from Rhode Island. Three years 
are too short a time in which to introduce into a 
State's life a great new principle — to have laws passed 
for the enforcement of that principle — to wait for 
those laws to pass through the courts and be con- 
sidered by those courts. And I claim, friends, when 
you talk about the failure of Prohibition in Rhode 
Island, that there had not been time in which it could 
honestly and honorably fail. One of the judges of our 
Supreme Court said to me, " Mrs. Burlingame, our State 
has had a long series of years under one of the most per- 
fect License systems that any State has ever tried, and it 
is only fair that our State have time in which to make a 
fair test of Prohibition." And I claim that the three 
years during which we had that on our Statute Book 
were not sufficient in which to make a fair test of it in 



276 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

our State. I claim, friends, that there was a great mis- 
take made, not only by the people of our State, but by 
the people of our Nation, in judging as to -what Prohibi- 
tion could do there. Now it would be very nice in this 
world if every good cause had immediate results. But 
where can you see a church which has been put down in 
a community and has converted the whole of that com- 
munity within three years ? "Where can you see a church 
that has perhaps made more progress than has been 
shown you by the statistics given you this afternoon ? 
Especially would that be true if that church had armed 
enemies in the field, who were seeking to overthrow 
every effort that is made. Now, when we put Prohibi- 
tion into our Constitution in Rhode Island, it was our 
Declaration of Independence. But the people thought 
it was Yorktown. And there is where the mistake has 
been made, not only in our State, but other States. 
Friends, the enactment of Prohibition, if the enemy 
would immediately submit, if we could have officers who 
would enforce the law, might bring immediate results. 
But when that Declaration of Independence was written, 
what did Great Britain say ? " No, no, you are not free. 
That means nothing." When that was put into the 
Constitution of Rhode Island, the liquor power said, 
" No," and then the fight began, and if we could have 
gone on long enough, we should have reached our York- 
town. Friends, I claim that there is another thing : that 
we did not contemplate sufficiently moral gains. We 
made a great moral gain in Rhode Island when we put 
in our Constitution that which made every man who sold 
a glass of liquor as a beverage, for three years a criminal 
in Rhode Island. I claim that we made a great moral 
gain when we put that into our Constitution, which said 
to every boy and girl in the State, " That which you are 
taught in our schools about Temperance is met and sus- 



THURSDAY AFTERNOON. 277 

tained by the laws of the State." Friends, until we 
make legal and moral right synonymous in our country, 
there is danger ahead. 

Mr. John T. Tanner, of Alabama, spoke as follows : 
Ladies and Gentlemen : While I am a citizen of Ala- 
bama, I rise before you to make a few remarks in regard 
to the failure of the Prohibition Amendment in the State 
of Texas. I was in that State two weeks ago ; had 
the honor of meeting ex-Governor St. John there ; and 
I learned a great deal of the facts concerning the failure 
of Prohibition in the State of Texas. I state, in the first 
instance, one of the causes of failure in Texas was the 
impurtation of ten thousand Mexicans. Another item 
was that ex-President Davis, of the Southern Confeder- 
acy, was induced to write a letter there. Tt was brought 
about by chicanery. They induced the poor old man to 
write a letter, and it was the cause of losing almost a 
hundred thousand votes in that State for Prohibition. 
Now that is a remarkable statement, but I state that as 
a fact. I want to say one thing more. While I am from 
Alabama, I want to say that Alabama was the first State 
that ordered the reduction of Fort Sumter ; and Mr. 
Walker, an acquaintance of mine, living then within 
twenty-five miles of me, was then the Secretary of War, 
and he was said to be one of the finest presiding officers, 
and one of the best informed in parliamentary usage, in 
the United States. If he had been living and witnessed 
the proceedings of this Congress, he would have lost that 
honor. I want to say another thing, that I am glad to 
say that I was one of the first to be admitted into the 
National Congress of Temperance People of these United 
States from Alabama, and I am sorry that my wife is 
not here, for she would enjoy it. She is in favor of the 
women having all the rights that are due to women in 
this land. And as an evidence of what I have just re- 



278 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

marked in regard to the efficiency of this gentleman, I 
see that he is highly appreciated by some fair hand (re- 
ferring to a bouquet sent to the President). I had the 
pleasure of an introduction last night to his better half, 
and I am sure that I fully join with her in all of the ap- 
preciation that she has of this good man. And I could 
have had no greater pleasure in coming to this city than 
to have made the acquaintance of Dr. Deems. 

Secretary John Lloyd Thomas, of the National Prohi- 
bition Committee, spoke as follows : 

Why were the Prohibition Amendments a failure, or 
why was the effort to carry Constitutional Prohibition a 
failure, in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, etc.? Because, 
we are told, they didn't have votes enough. Correct. 
Why didn't they have votes enough ? Perhaps some of 
you think that there were votes enough to carry the 
Amendment, but that the votes were not polled. Why 
were the votes not polled ? I have learned, from my 
personal experience in all of those States (for I engaged 
in the campaign in each one of them) — from personal ex- 
perience and communication with all parts of the States ; 
from personal communication, also, with the leaders of 
the campaign on both sides of the question in all of 
those States — because I communicated with the leaders 
of the liquor interest as well as the. leaders of the 
Amendment interest. We didn't poll votes enough in 
those States because there was an unholy conspiracy be- 
tween the political parties and the liquor men to prevent 
the polling of those votes ; because the efforts to educate 
the sentiment were foiled by the efforts of the old polit- 
ical party press to keep the education away from the 
people and close up to us the channels for conveying the 
education to the people. Why did we lose the Amend- 
ment ? Because, in places where sufficient votes were 



THURSDAY AFTERNOON. 279 

polled to carry the Amendment locally, those votes were 
wickedly counted out by the watchers and vote-counters 
aud recorders that were placed at the boxes by the lead- 
ers of the old political parties. Why didn't we carry the 
Amendment in those States ? Because, brethren, it was 
the fight of a crowd, an unorganized public sentiment, 
against the disciplined and well-organized political corps 
managed as one man by shrewd political leaders, centred 
upon the weak spots where the people were not prepared 
to,resist the onslaughts of the enemy. 

How shall we carry Prohibition ? By meeting this 
organization with an organization equally thorough. By 
meeting a hostile and subsidized and corrupt press with 
a press pure, patriotic, and honest and honorable ; by 
meeting the money of the liquor-saloonists with the 
money of the people of this country. And, brethren, 
when I say the people of the country, I don't mean only 
the Total Abstainers of the country. In the State of 
Pennsylvania I saw men, moderate drinkers and im- 
moderate drinkers, drunkards, walking to the ballot- 
boxes and depositing their ballots for the Constitutional 
Amendment ; and in doing so I heard one man (and I 
will never forget it) ask God to either bless or damn the 
Total Abstainers who cast their ballots against his pro- 
tection. Educate sentiment ! We have been told that 
we are firing into the camps of our friends. Brethren, 
let us be frank. We do fire into the ranks of the High 
License advocates. Let us be frank about it. Because 
we despise them ? Oh, no ; but because they are our ene- 
mies, and we must get after them. 

Mrs. Mary T. Lathrap, of Michigan, said : 
We have been told several times in this convention 
that when we come to a point where our ways separate, 
we must keep sweet. This observation is usually made, 



280 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

in its bearings, to apply to the radical Temperance peo- 
ple, who stand on the outside lines of this discussion. 
Now, dear friends, I want to say this, that the radical 
Temperance people who represent the outposts of this 
discussion agree with everything that is behind of Moral 
Suasion or Restrictive Legislation — everything. We 
have gone over that, and the people who stand on the 
outside line have nothing to gain and all to lose by go- 
ing back, while some of the people who represent a line 
not yet come up to, where these are, have nothing to lose 
and all to gain by going with us. "We will go as far as 
you possibly can on any moral line, and then we will go 
beyond you and call on you to come up. So we can 
afford to keep sweet. 

We were told this morning that this was a State ques- 
tion. I thought that recent history had tortured us out 
of that kind of logic. Allow me, in the minutes that 
I have left, to say this : that up to 1863, the liquor-deal- 
ers, standing at the uncertain bar of public opinion in 
this country, were modest. Since 1863, they have not 
known what modesty meant. The reason is not far to 
seek ; for in 1862, the Federal Government put the rev- 
enue on intoxicating drinks to meet the expenses of the 
war, and it was national action that brought the Liquor 
Traffic into politics and to the front. In 1863, in Feb- 
ruary, the liquor-dealers of this country were called to- 
gether for the purpose of organizing a national organiza- 
tion to protect their own interests. They declared that 
it was necessary for them to control the legislative and 
executive forces of government in the interests of their 
business, and therefore they organized nationally. They 
appointed a national committee on agitation, to look 
after their affairs in Washington, and they have shown 
ever since a greater philosophy and a greater insight 
into affairs, and have been wiser, than the Temperance 



THURSDAY AFTERNOON. 281 

people. Why ? Because, in the first place, they organ- 
ized nationally. You never heard them talking about 
this being a State issue. On the contrary, their paid 
attorneys said, in one of their recent congresses, u Gen- 
tlemen, if we can keep our hands on the National Gov- 
ernment, we can control this matter in the States ;" and 
Congressional control and national power has reached 
and over-passed all State regulations and State power, 
and has brought the Liquor Traffic to the front. So, 
dear friends, they have organized nationally, and from 
that time they began to endeavor to control the political 
parties. In this they succeeded. In 1872, they captured 
the Republican party ; in 1876, the Democratic party ; 
and since that both of these parties have been in favor 
of the Liquor Traffic. What has defeated Constitutional 
Amendments ? The attitude of the political parties and 
the political machines. On the lever of the political 
machine have been the hands of men in the United States 
Senate, as in Pennsylvania, and men in legislative and 
senatorial honors, as in the State of Michigan ; and we 
can't move one step farther, in some of these States 
where Constitutional Prohibition" has been defeated, 
without retiring to private life such gentlemen as Mat* 
thew Quay. 

The President : The editor of the Wine and Spirit Re- 
view has sent me a package of papers to be distributed, 
but I think he wants them mainly to be handed over to 
the representative of the journal which had an article 
this morning on which he comments, and of which he 
approves. 

The President expressed his thanks to the New Jersey 
Woman's Christian Temperance Union for a beautiful 
bouquet which they had sent him. 

The next subject was 



282 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

The Attitude of the Labor Men toward the 
Liquor Traffic. 

The discussion was opened by Mr. Samuel Gompers, 
President of the American Federation of Labor, who 
read the following paper : 

Ladies and Gentlemen : I have been asked to address 
this assemblage upon the topic, " The Attitude of the 
Labor Men toward the Liquor Traffic," and I desire to 
say that the invitation was accepted after considerable 
thought, and with the distinct understanding that entire 
freedom of expression would be guaranteed me. 

In view, however, of the well-known views entertained 
by most — yes, all of you, I enter upon the task with many 
misgivings as to the result. 

At best, in the short time allotted, a mere assertion of 
facts can be uttered and only generalizations indulged 
in, trusting either that they will be found self-evident 
truths, or that a future opportunity may be found for 
the demonstration of their justness. 

In the first place, permit me to say that, generally 
speaking, the labor men look with considerable indiffer- 
ence upon the efforts of the Temperance and Prohibition 
agitations. This is due to several causes, and can be 
briefly stated thus : 

So far as the immediate and tangible condition of labor 
is concerned, the working people find that Liquor Traffic 
reformers are only different to other employers of labor 
in this respect, that they usually treat their employees with 
a greater degree of unfairness than do other employers ; 
that all legislation to regulate the Liquor Traffic can 
and does only affect the workingmen when they indulge 
in liquor (as they must if they want to indulge in liquor 
at all) over the bars, or as sold to them otherwise in the 
only way they can buy it — namely, in small quantities, 
and at such times as they want it ; that legislative regu- 



THURSDAY AFTERNOON 283 

lation of the traffic cannot and does not affect the rich or 
well-conditioned people, who can and do purchase large 
quantities and use it at will ; that many employers of 
labor have used this argument : that, inasmuch as the 
Liquor Traffic has been regulated or prohibited in certain 
localities, and money cannot be expended for liquor, the 
workers can afford to work for less wages ; that the so- 
called Prohibition of the Liquor Traffic has not pro- 
hibited it, but has merely given them worse liquor at 
higher prices ; that you cannot make men more sober or 
temperate in the use of liquor or make them Total Ab- 
stainers by law ; that the only natural and permanent 
manner in which men become sober, temperate, or Total 
Abstainers in and from the use of liquor is through the 
improvement in their habits and customs ; that the habits 
and customs of the people become improved by the im- 
provement in their material conditions and surroundings ; 
that high wages and a reasonable number of hours of 
labor tend more largely to improve the habits and cus- 
toms of the working people, hence lead to a greater de- 
gree of sobriety and regularity of conduct ; that, as a 
rule, there are three classes in society which habitually 
get drunk — namely, those who have no work to do be- 
cause they are too rich, and find the rounds of society 
life too monotonous, and look for the excitement result- 
ing from the exuberance of the contents of champagne 
bottles ; the second, those who, after having the spirit 
crushed out of them by their too long hours of daily 
drudgery, let in too much spirit at night as a substitute ; 
the third, those who have no work to do because they 
cannot find it to do, and " get drunk on their faces." 

There are probably other statements of equal impor- 
tance and truth, but which lack of time reminds me had 
better remain unsaid if I desire to make a few remarks 
on a matter to which your attention should be directed, 



284 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

and which in a large measure determines the course of 
our people. 

There can be no question of difference that in no civil- 
ized country on the face of the globe do the changes in 
the weather occur more often ; that in consequence the 
climatic conditions of our country are of the most trying 
and exacting upon the human system ; that the climatic 
conditions have undoubtedly tended to work up the 
nervous systems of our people to the highest possible 
tension ; that this high tension of the nervous system 
evidently accounts for the quicker movements and 
work of our people over that of any other on earth ; 
that, as a consequence, the body requires greater nutri- 
ment and more rest to maintain anything like an equilib- 
rium, or, in the absence of either, or both, stimulants 
will be indulged in, even if they do subtly destroy both 
mind and body. 

None know better than do the so-called leaders in the 
movement for Labor Reform the curse of liquor and the 
hindrance it is to the better education and activity in 
that field of operations ; but we view this question as 
we find it, the result of poor conditions rather than the 
cause. I do not pretend to say that this rule is invari- 
able, but I am sure it is general. Hence we base our 
operations upon removing the cause of the evil rather 
than dallying with the result. 

The sad refrain of " the Song of the Shirt" is more 
heartrending, pitiful, and truthful to-day than at the 
time in which it was written. The pitiless, arrogant, and 
relentless taskmaster stalks this earth to-day as in the 
days of yore. The toilers* endless and hopeless and un- 
fairly requited drudgery is almost as bitter now as ever. 

It is the u Gospel of Relaxation" and leisure, that re- 
sults in better material and moral conditions, that we 
preach and urge you to consider^ 



THURSDAY AFTERNOON. 285 

Mind, I do not wish to be understood to say that your 
gatherings and agitations do no good. On the contrary, 
I hail them as an excellent means to awaken thought and 
discussion upon an extremely important condition of life. 

In the time of the old fire-alarm bell, it was very irk- 
some and annoying to be aroused from our slumbers dur- 
ing the night, but it was far preferable to being roasted 
alive in our beds. So, say I, with all forms of agitation. 
They are the danger signals that wrong exists, which re- 
quire the intelligent action and co-operation of mankind. 
To me nothing appears more fraught with dire results 
than a torpid or dormant condition of the people. They 
are the causes of reaction, and most destructive to the 
body politic, moral, social, and economic. 

I therefore hail you as cranks, as fellow cranks who, 
knowing that all things are not right merely because 
they exist, and knowing this, in the face of all opposi- 
tion, rancorous antagonism and flippant ridicule, dare 
proclaim and maintain what we believe to be right. 

My friends, I trust you will not regard me in any way 
inimical to your various movements or agitations to reg- 
ulate the Liquor Traffic. My purpose was to state as 
truthfully as I perceive and understand the attitude of 
the Labor Men toward the Liquor Traffic. 

Mr. T. B. Wakeman, of New York, spoke as follows : 

Mr, President, Ladies and Gentlemen : I appear in 
rather a singular position, as representing those who can- 
not be represented, but whose voice ought to be heard, 
and who have been heard through one of their represent- 
atives, the gentleman who has just addressed you. Do 
you reflect that that gentleman represents thousands of 
people, almost a million ; that until you can get the 
labor organizations of the country, represented by such 
men as this speaker and Mr. Powderly, to stand in an 
attitude of friendliness to your movement, it can hardly 



286 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

succeed ? You have here your friends, you are here 
unanimous, but you are here simply as an earnest minor- 
ity. You cannot fchake the great mass of the people of 
this nation simply by your unanimous and pleasant voices 
to each other, uttered here. The real truth is that the 
Labor movement lies across your path, and unless you 
can remove that barrier your progress for the present is 
stayed. 

A Voice : We will absorb it. 

Mr. Wakeman : How will you absorb it ? That is the 
question. You have just heard their difficulties. Their 
first difficulty is that it is the economy that makes the 
morality, and not the morality that makes the economy ; 
and they move the previous question as a question of 
economy — the Labor Question. The greatest evil on 
earth, according to them, is poverty, not drunkenness. 
Drunkenness is independent of poverty to such an extent 
that they insist upon it that the question of economics, 
the industry or Labor Question, must be first attacked by 
the body politic before drunkenness can really be removed. 
Now that complaint means this, that you have got to go 
into a business of education with these men, firstly ; and, 
secondly, you have got to remove their objections from 
your method of propaganda. Those are the two things 
you have got to do ; and the first, the noble speaker 
here (for noble he is, though a workman) has stated 
fairly ; and here in the Nationalist (I wish I had time to 
read it) is the same complaint, that the real difficulty is 
that the workingmen and the most of the people of this 
country believe that there is comfort in alcoholic drinks. 
Until they can be convinced that there is no comfort in 
alcohol, that it is, as Dr. Davis said yesterday in that 
admirable paper, simply an arch-deceiver, a treacherous 
assassin in the very centre of the soul, until they can be 
convinced of that, that their imagined comfort is simply 



THURSDAY AFTERXOOX. 287 

an illusion, that alcohol is an irritant and at the same 
time a paralyzer, that it paralyzes and then leaves the 
hungry cells and tissues yelling for more of the anaes- 
thetic or paralyzer, and doing no good whatever ; until 
that simple physiological truth can be taught to the 
masses of the people, and, above all, to the laboring 
masses, you can't convince them that they don't get 
comfort out of alcohol. You have got to do that, and 
then you will have allies among the working people of 
this country, and not before. And mere eloquence, 
mere appeal to law, mere appeal, above all, to religious 
fanaticism, which is the predominant idea here (cries of 
" No"), does not avail or prevail, nor will it ever 
prevail, with the mass of the people. Let the truth 
be known ; for here is the place where help is to be 
obtained, by the true appreciation of the truth of the 
situation. 

And then, secondly, you have got to change largely 
your method of propaganda before you gain their hearts. 
The first objection is to the High License business. The 
trouble with it is, to their eye, that it is nothing more 
than a system of monopoly. You give monopolies to the 
politicians and their friends to use the rum shop and the 
Liquor Traffic for the benefit of those who own the pol- 
iticians and who deal out political influence and liquor 
as one and the same thing. Now the working people 
know perfectly well what that means. It means high 
prices on all the comfort that they have. The only heaven 
they have is through this paralyzer. They are half 
worked to death. They have no time to give to intellect- 
ual culture or aesthetic pleasure of any kind, except of 
this gross sort. That is their position, and they feel that 
when you put on a High License you are giving the rich 
man the advantage, giving monopolies to the rich. And 
you think the working people are fools, and they won't 



288 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

sympathize with any Temperance movement that goes on 
that ground, you may be sure. 

The next point — Prohibition. The trouble with Pro- 
hibition is in the way that it is put — a sumptuary law, 
backed by sumptuary influences, backed by the rich, 
backed by religious fanaticism, backed by the power 
which says, "We are holier than thou. Sit down." 
That is the spirit of the Prohibitionists. (Cries of " No 
no.") No, you deny it. I want you to know the truth. 

The President : I understood the speaker to be giving 
us what the workingmen's views are. Why should we 
sit here and cry, " No, no" I We have sent him down 
to the Battery to find how many boats are in, and he re- 
ports fourteen. We wanted ten, and we cry, u No, no." 
I understand that this gentleman, as well as his prede- 
cessor, is simply giving us the views of the workingmen ; 
and I, for one, beg to hear them. I want to know them, 
so as to meet them. 

Mr. Wakeman : That is exactly the spirit in which my 
remarks were made, If you believe they were not true, 
read this article, Nationalism versus Prohibition, in the 
last number of the Nationalist, and there you will see it 
stated with all its plainness, that far exceeds any words 
of mine. If you don't believe it, cross-examine this gen- 
tleman who sits back of me. He will tell you with an 
emphasis that I cannot give. No, my friends, you are 
deceiving yourselves. You don't understand this ques- 
tion, when it meets the mass of the people. You wonder 
why you are defeated in State after State. I can tell 
you. Because you put on airs of holiness, and try to rise 
above the workman, and the true workman won't stand 
it, and he is in rebellion. That is the trouble. 

Now, then, can there be any method devised by which, 
in conjunction with the education of the people as to 
the real nature of alcohol — to wit, that it is a poisoner 



THURSDAY AFTERNOON. 289 

always, and always deleterious to the human system, as 
Dr. Davis has proved — can we put the Prohibition move- 
ment upon a footing which shall be clear, which shall 
get rid of the sumptuary idea attached to it, and which 
shall be a common protective measure of all the people, 
rich and poor, workman and employer ? Can we do 
that ? Can we take a method of graduated Restriction, 
leading up to a method that shall be actually a practical 
abolition of the saloon business and of the Liquor Traffic ? 
Was there not such a method devised and stated here 
yesterday afternoon by Dr. Funk ? Was it not stated 
that, while you could not carry the mass of the people at 
present to the absolute Prohibition problem, we might 
change it and put it upon a secular, common basis of al- 
cohol poison, not a prohibition of a traffic, but a restric- 
tion of the use of a poison ? The distinction is immense. 
In the first case you stand aloof from the man, as better 
than he, and try to drive him and prohibit him, and cut 
him oS. from something. In the other position you stand 
as his friend and protector, trying to save him from 
arsenic, alcohol, and all other poisons, on a common basis, 
prohibiting no one except as you prohibit everybody 
from the sale of that poisonous article, just as you do 
now. 

Now I may be mistaken. I don't understand these 
Temperance men much, but I thought I understood Dr. 
Funk. I think he has got hold of something that can 
save this whole Temperance propaganda and put it on a 
common, secular and uniform, equal and unprejudiced 
basis, upon which all people, workingmen or others, 
can stand in common and say, before a common law, 
which is applied equally as to all classes of the commu- 
nity, " We stand with you, and we will not oppose any- 
thing that seeks to destroy this evil." As Mr. Gompers 
said, it is a tremendous evil, and the reason we cannot 



290 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

succeed better with the Labor Movement is because of 
this very superstition that alcohol is a good thing, and 
of the superstition that those who are managing the 
Temperance Movement are really the enemies of the 
working people. Convince those working people that 
you are their friends, by putting the matter on that 
common basis. Give them the verdict of science on this 
question, and then you have placed your prohibitory or 
rather restrictionary abolition movement on the solid 
basis of science as its corner-stone, and humanity as the 
direction for its common propaganda. 

Hon. Edwin C. Pierce, of Providence, R I., said : 
Mr. President : My relations, personally and political- 
ly, with the labor men of Rhode Island justify me in 
claiming to represent them on this point. The secret bal- 
lot is, as you know, a favorite measure with the labor 
men of America. Rhode Island was the first State to 
emulate Massachusetts in enacting the Australian system, 
pure and unadulterated. It was my fortune to introduce 
in the General Assembly of Rhode Island that bill, which 
became a law, and which became a law only because I 
carried, to back it, the petitions of the factory opera- 
tives of the State of Rhode Island. And I am charged 
by the labor leaders of Rhode Island, very many of them, 
to represent them at this Congress to-day, and there are 
those here from Rhode Island that know that in that 
State, through the exertions of myself and those who 
act with me (and there are many such), we have made a 
larger advance toward placing these two hands of Tem- 
perance and Labor together than has been made in any 
State in the American Union ; and I know whereof I 
speak. There is no time, and I will hot attempt, to dis- 
cuss this subject. The two gentlemen who have preceded 
me have stated the attitude of an immense number of 
the labor people of this country toward the Temperance 



THURSDAY AFTKRKOOX. 291 

Movement. In great part, however, they misunderstand 
the Prohibitionists of America. The two elements do 
not understand each other. Men like Samuel Gompers 
have mastered both questions. I know that very many 
men of his stamp have mastered both the Labor and the 
Temperance problem, and I tell you Prohibitionists that 
every one of those who propose to lead in the Temper- 
ance Movement must master the Labor Problem as well 
as the other. Study these problems. Study them as 
critically as you please, every radical theory that there 
is in this country for the relief, by legislative aid, of the 
cause of labor. Study them critically ; but, I conjure 
you, study them sympathetically. I refrain from what 
I could elaborate upon. The Labor Interest of America 
is tending, after all, toward Prohibition. I could prove 
that if I had more minutes. It i3 tending, as never be- 
fore, in that direction, and the thing can be done ; it will 
be done, in my judgment. A party will be needed in 
this country to nationalize this as well as other questions. 
The Liquor Traffic is a national question. Dr. Carroll's 
paper was an admirable paper from a very able man, 
and he states the general view which most of us have 
accepted, myself included, down to the time I began to 
consider the subject seriously. No one in America pre- 
tends to say that if a citizen of New York contracts to 
sell a barrel of beer to a citizen of Rhode Island, he 
hasn't a perfect right, under the Constitution, to carry 
out that transaction. There is not a lawyer in the United 
States who does not understand that the courts cannot 
prevent that transaction being consummated. When the 
party of the future is born, it will nut have a name sig- 
nificant of any single issue. It will have the mind of 
Hamilton and the heart of Jefferson. May God grant, 
and grant He will, if we are wise, in 1892, that the aspir- 
ing toilers of America, the American democracy, will 



292 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

vote for a party which will have the suppression of the 
Liquor Traffic as a leading aim. 

Rev. Solomon Parsons, of Paterson, N. J., said : 
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentleman : lam from a city 
where we have a very large laboring population — a man- 
ufacturing town. I am very certain, gentlemen, that 
you can never succeed in your labor organizations until 
you take hold of this Liquor Traffic. The strikes — I am 
not saying whether they are right or wrong ; I sometimes 
think they are right, and sometimes wrong ; the strikes 
are universally failures in this country, because the men 
that make them have not saved enough money to carry 
them out. They have spent their surplus money for 
liquor, and they can never make these strikes successful 
until they lay up some of the money that now goes into 
the till of the saloon. In Paterson, I have no doubt that 
nine-tenths of the liquor saloons are supported by the 
operatives in that city. The men of means don't buy 
their liquor at these saloons. Sabbath breaking is car- 
ried on in a wholesale manner in that city. It is these 
labor men that patronize these Sunday saloons, and keep 
up a bigger business on Sunday than at any other time. 
Until you can get your labor men to come into the house 
of God and get an educated conscience on this questiftn, 
you may agitate this question all you have a mind to, 
and you will make no real success for the laboring peo- 
ple. We need, I think, to join these questions. I 
am in hearty sympathy with the laboring men, and I 
know that many of the most efficient workers in our 
Prohibition Party have been men who came from the 
ranks of Labor. It is not the millionaires, not the men 
of money, but the common laboring people that are do- 
ing more to advance this question to-day than any other 
people. I have been perfectly astonished, sir, that 
while we could not secure money from men of means to 



THURSDAY AFTERNOOK". 293 

advance this Prohibition interest, these laboring men 
that have come in and joined us have poured out their 
money liberally — more so than in any Labor organization, 
I think. I am not willing to receive the insinuation that 
we are a lot of Pharisees, setting ourselves up as more 
holy than other people. Why, bless you, the men that 
are in the front rank in this Prohibition work are from 
the ranks of Labor. So far as we have gone, touching 
the Prohibition movement, I believe that the real back- 
bone of it is the laboring people, and there is no divorce- 
ment whatever between the laboring people and the 
Church on this question. The Church is in sympathy 
with the laboring people. We don't advance their pe- 
culiar labor devices, and yet we stand by their great 
principles. I have read Mr. Henry George. I think 
every minister ought to read him, if he can understand 
him. There are a great many good things in his book. 
A few years ago, Mr. Bishop sent out in New Jersey cer- 
tain questions — u What will better the condition of the 
laboring men ?" Almost invariably those laboring men, 
in their answers — I have carefully examined them and 
put them together — almost invariably we find the labor- 
ing men who have intelligence enough to frame an an- 
swer, saying, u The one great enemy to the labor move- 
ment is the Liquor Traffic, and we can never succeed 
until we put it down." The intelligent workers in the 
Labor Movement see that they must connect their work 
with the question of the putting down of this Liquor 
Traffic in America. We need the laboring men. We 
need their votes, their money, their sympathy. And I 
think that if the intelligent men who are leading this 
movement would present the thing in the right light, we 
should soon get a great deal more force from this class of 
the population. 
- Nov/, I will tell you the reason they don't unite with. 



294 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

us. I used to labor with a man, to get him to give up 
whiskey. He took up a black bottle one day. Said he, 
" This is a man's enemy, isn't it V " Most assuredly," 
said I. Said he, " We are taught to love our enemies ; 
so here goes.'' And he just swallowed the enemy. That 
is the trouble with these people. They love their whis- 
key more than the Church of God. I would like to see 
the laboring people of Paterson take hold of this ques- 
tion. "While there are many exceptions, the great mass 
of the laboring population of this city are against Tem- 
perance and morality and a helpful Sabbath, and you 
never can hope for the elevation of Labor in this country 
until the laboring people respect the Christian Sabbath 
and respect morals. It is a moral as well as a political 
question, and the people have got to respect morals in 
this matter. I am in sympathy, I say, with this Labor 
Question. I do hope the time is not distant when they 
will work on these lines of Temperance, and Prohibition 
will be found united with all who are working on the 
lines of lifting the laboring people in this country. But 
let us work on solid principles, and I believe that, in the 
end, we shall find that the result is just what we are 
after. 

Hon. Henry B. Metcalf, of Rhode Island, said : 
Mr. President : I have already occupied as much of the 
time of this Congress as I may properly claim, but I want 
to say a very few words on the matter which is before 
us. In looking over the programme, I found no names 
upon it as speakers that interested me more than those 
of Samuel Gompcrs and T. B. Wakeman. My sincere 
regret is that I could not have listened to a longer pres- 
entation of the thoughts of those gentlemen. I should 
be glad to learn from them. I don't think I should 
agree with them in every point. I am not here for that 
purpose. I did not come here either to proselyte. I 



THURSDAY AFTERKOOH. 295 

came to learn, and I should be delighted to learn more 
from them-^-a single thought only in the direction in 
which they have been speaking ; and that only because 
I think that it has not been given the attention that it 
deserves. We are agreed, Mr. President, as to the enor- 
mous waste incident to the Liquor Traffic, figuring it up 
in all directions — the cost to the drinker, the loss to the 
family, the loss to the employer, the loss to the commu- 
nity, the loss to the taxpayers, the cost of the prisons, the 
cost of the police ; we know that it is an enormous sum. 
"When the producers of this country come to a realizing 
sense of the fact that nearly every dollar of that they 
have to pay, something will be done. I know, sir, of no 
way of providing for waste except by production. I 
know of no way of covering the waste, except by the 
industries of the people. It may come indirectly. I 
said to some labor men, on one occasion, u Here is such 
and such a waste, and you pay for the whole of it." 
" Oh, no, I don't. The man that owns that large build- 
ing over there pays it. He pays the tax ; I don't." But 
he adds it to your rent ; don't you forget it. Directly 
and indirectly the labor of the country has got to pay 
for this fearful, terrible waste. When the laborers of 
the country realize that fact they will sweep that enor- 
mity from the face of the earth. 
Bev. J. B. English, D.D., of New York, said : 
Mr, President, Ladies and Gentlemen : I didn't come 
here to make a speech, but I can't help speaking upon 
this subject. My life has been, for fifteen years, as a min- 
ister of the Gospel, associated with the laboring people. 
I have been profoundly interested in them, in their lives, 
in their homes, in their hopes, in their plans. I do not 
believe that the laboring people of this country are an 
ignorant people. I do believe that they are among the 
most intelligent people that are to be found in this na- 



296 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

tion to-day, and therefore they are acquainted with the 
grand events ; they are being educated by the facts, as 
they are passing before us to-day. And on this question 
of the Liquor Traffic they are well posted. What is 
their attitude toward the Liquor Traffic to-day ? It is 
an attitude of suffering. No class of people suffer more 
from this damnable business than the laboring people of 
this country. No class of people have it in their hearts 
more earnestly to overthrow it than the laboring people 
of this country. We do not recognize the value of 
humanity. This is an economic question. The time has 
been, in the history of this country, when our political 
economists did not recognize humanity as a factor. It 
was the value of the land, it was the value of stocks and 
mortgages, it was the value of railroad companies and 
great properties. But the time has come in the history 
of economics when we are coming to recognize the value 
of the man. What is needful in this country to-day in 
the movements for progress is not more men, but more 
man ; and the political economy of the present time and 
of later time will recognize the value of man. It is be- 
cause the people of this country and other countries have 
been cheapened by the Liquor Traffic that their value 
has not been fully recognized. Nothing has put them 
so down in the scale of humanity as this infernal traffic. 
Nothing makes a weak man weaker, nothing makes a 
strong man weaker, than the use of the infernal thing 
that we call intoxicants. It takes the life and the soul 
out of him, and it makes a very poor citizen of him. It 
is the value of the man that we are to recognize. When 
the Lord God of Heaven would make a gift to this world 
that should be in harmony with His own perfections and 
the value of the whole world, what did He give us ? He 
gave us a man, His own Son. And when He would 
make a present to His Son in harmony with His dignity 



THURSDAY AFTER^OO^. 297 

and His character and His perfections, nothing was left 
in Heaven good enough, and so He gave His Son regen- 
erated men. u Thine they were," He said, " and Thou 
gavest them Me." Oh, we are going a long way in 
progress when we come to recognize the value of the 
man ! Human nature is the cheapest thing on earth to- 
day. In Baltimore, Md., where I lived, the horse-cars 
were run by men who worked seventeen hours a day, 
and some of us said, " That ought to stop." There 
were men who never saw their children awake. The 
time came when it was necessary to say to the Legisla- 
ture, " You must pass a law to protect these men, and 
give them twelve hours instead of seventeen," and some 
of us went at it, and we got it for them, and the law is 
executed to-day. 

Professor Edwin Y. Wright, of New York, spoke as 
follows : 

This question of Labor, which is one that is calling 
the attention of thoughtful men throughout this country, 
is a question of the greatest importance. I stand before 
you here this afternoon as a graduated laborer. Some 
thirty years ago, I graduated in a blacksmith shop. I 
stand here this afternoon as a representative coworker 
and colaborer with Labor and Labor organizations for 
the last twenty-five years. I stand here, my friends, to 
say to you that the worst enemy that the laboring man 
of this country has is the gin-mill and the beer saloon. 
My experience is particularly related, in brief, that a few 
years ago, I was associated with an assembly of the 
Knights of Labor — with the Educational Department of 
it — where I had nine thousand men to talk to, more or 
less. I found that the place where those men congre- 
gated to get education was the annex of a beer saloon. 
There has not been, for the last twenty -five years, in the 
city of New York, a Labor organization of any kind, but 



298 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

the majority of their meetings have been held in the 
annex of a beer saloon. In God's name, what can we 
expect of the situation of the workingmen of the great 
citv of New York under such circumstances ? You can 
find laboring men — and I speak with the greatest kind- 
ness ; I have the greatest reverence for this representa- 
tive gentleman here, Mr. Gompers ; I know that he 
understands something of the work he is engaged in ; 
but the people that he represents, as well as the Knights 
of Labor, of which I have had the honor of being a mem- 
ber for years, do not understand the great question of 
Temperance or Prohibition. I find that, as was said 
here a short time ago, the great mass of the people, even 
the educated people, are absolutely ignorant of the ques- 
tion of rum and its influence upon the human system. 
"When they become better acquainted with the scientific 
aspects of the Temperance question, when they take time 
in their organizations to give that question thorough 
consideration, T shall expect better results. But I was 
forced to leave the Knights of Labor because in their 
organizations they were ready to receive hardly a word 
on the question of Temperance and Prohibition. I thank 
God that we have a Powderly ; and were it not for him 
the laboring men of this country, known as the Knights 
of Labor, would be far in the dark from where they are 
to-day. I hope that Samuel Gompers will make his 
name stand, in the future, as the President of the Con- 
federation of Labor, alongside of Powderly, who says 
that the rum curse is the gigantic curse and foe of the 
laborer of this country. And there will be no doubt 
upon this question. I want to see the laboring men and 
the temperance men strike hands. The time is not far 
distant when they will, and a few more such meetings 
as this, and in the various counties of the great Empire 
State and of the several States of the Union, for the 



THURSDAY AETEKNOOK. 299 

purpose of conference, will bring these organizations, the 
wealth-producers of the land, hand in hand with the 
Prohibitionists, and give us by and by a civilization that 
shall be worthy of the name. 

The President : My friends, I am instructed by Mr. 
John Lloyd Thomas that I called him out on the wrong 
subject ; that he wanted to speak on this subject, and 
that I was all wrong before. Now if he can make a lit- 
tle better speech on this subject than he did on the 
other, I will give him four minutes. 

Mr. Thomas said : 

I am the son of an iron-worker, and from the day I 
was eleven years old until two or three years ago, I 
worked in an iron mill and in coal-mines. Our friend, 
Mr. Wakeman, said that the Labor question lay across 
the path of the Prohibition question. I believe that the 
Prohibition question is the Labor question ; and because 
I believe it is the Labor question, that is the reason I 
am a Prohibitionist. I look upon Mr. Gompers and Mr. 
Wakeman as representative workmen. I look upon 
Charles H. Leitchman as a representative workman. He 
told the people of Pennsylvania to vote and work for 
Prohibition. I look upon P. M. Arthur as a representa- 
tive workman. He said, " Every friend of the working- 
man will vote against the saloon every time he gets a 
chance, and close it up, not only upon Sunday, but upon 
every day of the week." I look upon Ralph Beaumont 
as a representative workman. He says that to-day, more 
than all other questions that do not deal with the funda- 
mental principles of political economy, the Liquor Traffic 
rises up above all things else, the obstacle in the way of 
the working man. I look upon Terence V. Powderly as a 
representative workman. He says, " Boycott the saloon, 
and in five years' time there will be an invincible host 
working against oppression and tyranny and monopoly.' ' 



300 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

Strikes have been referred to. I have had a share in 
them, and I never yet knew an unjust strike started 
among laboring men that I did not trace the cause of it 
to the saloon. I have never known a just strike to fail 
of success that I did not trace the cause of that failure 
to the saloon. I know our brother Wakeman is not a 
very ardent advocate of the wage system, anyway. But, 
brethren mine, the wage system is here, and as loDg as 
it is here we have got to deal with it. A workman, be- 
fore the Senate Committee on Capital and Labor, said, 
" Drunkards, their impotent and debased progeny, con- 
victs and paupers, born of the saloon, make the wage 
rates in the labor market, and sober men, intelligent 
men, have to receive the wages that are made in the 
labor market by these drunkards and convicts and pau- 
pers." Where do you get your convicts? In the sa- 
loon. Where do you get your paupers, brothers mine ? 
Again, in and from the saloon. Now, I know it has 
been said that poverty causes drunkenness, rather than 
drunkenness poverty. We Prohibitionists have an un- 
fortunate habit of matching theories with actual experi- 
ence and figures. Our brother Rae, of England, will 
bear me out in the statement that this question has been 
examined in the large cities among the working people 
of England ; and, brothers, the men and the women who 
are sent to the poorhouses, who receive public support 
and alms as the result of poverty and indigence caused 
by the liquor traffic, are not the unskilled workingmen, 
are not the ignorant hand laborers, the poorest paid, but 
are skilled workingmen, who work short hours and get 
the largest wages. The actual facts arc demonstrated 
by observation and test in England. I wish to God that 
our census enumerators would test some of those facts 
here ; but they won't. I just want to say, in parenthe- 
sis, here — our brother Parsons suggested that we get the 



THURSDAY AFTERNOON. 301 

laboring people into the house of God. Amen to that ! 
But, as a laboring man, brothers and sisters, I say, in the 
name of God, get the house of God to the laboring 
people ! 

I am sorry that a good man like our brother Wakeman 
considers this a religious craze. It is because, I am sorry 
to say, our brother Wakeman don't come into the Church 
— he may come into the church building, but he doesn't 
get into the Church spirit, and the Church spirit doesn't 
get into Brother Wakeman and his associates. Let him 
understand us better, and he will know us better. I am 
glad that our Brother Metcalf alluded to the fact that 
taxation is caused, in large measure, by the Liquor 
Traffic, and that the working people of this country pay 
the taxes. In the name of God, let us put a stop to this 
tax-maker ! 

The remaining two minutes of the hour were given to 
Mr. Gompers, who said : 

There is but one thing, ladies and gentlemen, that I 
desire to say, and that is in regard to one statement of 
our friend, Mr. Thomas. I think it is a misstatement, 
based on anything but facts. It is not so, and I deny 
and defy a contradiction, that in any place on earth there 
is more drunkenness where wages are higher and the 
hours of labor are shorter. The very opposite is the 
truth. Wherever the hours of labor have been reduced, 
it has resulted in higher wages, and the more leisure 
given to the people has resulted in more sobriety. You 
can look to any trade that you please, to any calling 
that you please, and you will find that the workingmen 
and women who work eight or nine hours a day are more 
sober than those who work twelve, thirteen, and fourteen 
a day. I assure you that the man or woman who works 
twelve or fourteen hours a day has no spirit left. They 
have not a proper stomachful of food, and want and will 



302 KATIOKAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

have — I don't know whether they want it, but they will 
have, a stimulant as a substitute for the spirit that is 
driven and crushed out of them during the day. 

Mr. Thomas : Mr. Goshen, the Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer of England, says that the strike of the dock 
laborers and others, that resulted in higher wages and 
shorter hours, brought about an era of prosperity for the 
workmen of England, and the result has been a rush to 
the beer barrel, a greater consumption of spirits than 
ever before, and a greater revenue to the Treasury. 
There are other facts that might be mentioned. 

Mrs. Mary A. Woodbridge, who was to have discussed 
the subject of Law and Order Societies, being absent, the 
paper of Hon. C. C. Bonney, on the 

Original Package Decision, 

was read at this point by Assistant-Secretary A. R. 
Heath, as follows : 

The Commerce Power of the Nation is Paramount to 
the Police Power of the States (Leisy & Co. v. Hardin, 
U. S. S. C, April 28th, 1890). 

I. The Nature of the Case. — Illinois brewers 
brought replevin for beer imported into Iowa and 
seized there for violation of the Iowa prohibitory 
law. The lower court held the law void, as in con- 
travention of the National Constitution. An appeal 
was taken to the Iowa Supreme Court, and that 
court held the law good and the seizure valid. The 
case was then removed to the Supreme Court of the 
United States, where the last State decision was reversed, 
the law held unconstitutional, and the seizure unauthor- 
ized, because in conflict with the exclusive power of 
Congress u to regulate commerce with foreign nations 
and among the several States. " 

Chief Justice Fuller and Justices Miller, Field, Brad- 



THURSDAY AFTE11K00X. 303 

ley, Blatchford, and Lamar concurred in the opinion. 
Justices Harlan, Gray, and Brewer dissented. 

The statement of the case and the opinion of the 
court occupy nearly thirteen columns of the Chicago 
Legal News. 

The leading points of the decision are old law, and 
rest on prior decisions of the court, commencing with 
the great case of Gibbons v. Ogden, in 1824. Concisely 
stated, the doctrines of the decision are substantially as 
follows : 

II. Points of the Decision. — 1. The Constitution of 
the United States prohibits the several States from im- 
posing any restraints or conditions on interstate com- 
merce. 

2. The common right to engage in interstate com- 
merce includes the right to sell the subjects of such com- 
merce in the State into which they may be imported 
from another State or a foreign country. 

3. But those rights are subject to the paramount power 
of Congress to impose all such regulations, restrictions, 
conditions, restraints, and burdens as it may deem proper, 
or to prohibit such commerce altogether, in any articles 
which it may deem injurious to the general welfare. 

4. In merely local matters, such as bridges, ferries, 
quarantine, and the like, the States may act, until Con- 
gress shall intervene and exercise its superior power ; 
but in all things relating to general transportation and 
trade among the several States, the non-action of Con- 
gress is equivalent to a declaration that commercial inter- 
course shall be free and unrestricted. 

5. To permit the States to exclude one article of com- 
merce without the consent of Congress would, in effect, 
be a permission to them to exclude any or all others, as 
local interest or prejudice might demand. 

6. The police power of the States extends to all per- 



304 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS, 

sons and property within their limits, excepting only 
those cases in which the power to regulate and govern 
has been transferred to Congress. As to them, the 
power of the States has been suspended or abrogated. 
The entire subject of interstate commerce has been so 
transferred, and upon Congress alone rests the responsi- 
bility of whatever action the emergencies arising from 
time to time may require. Under its general power to 
regulate commerce, Congress may prescribe what articles 
of merchandise shall be admitted and what shall be ex- 
cluded, and may, therefore, admit or exclude the im- 
portation of ardent spirits, as it shall deem best. 

7. The right of the States to exclude infected or dis- 
eased articles, animals, or persons rests on a different 
ground. Things diseased or infected are not proper 
articles of trade or commerce at all, and the States may, 
therefore, rightfully prohibit and exclude them ; but not 
any known article of commerce the actual condition of 
which is not dangerous. 

8. But when an article of interstate commerce has, by 
sale and delivery to a resident of the State to which it 
was consigned, become a part of the general mass of 
property in the State, it is subject to the full operation 
o»f the State laws. The State may, indeed, discourage 
imports of a particular class, and may thereby diminish 
the price which ardent spirits would otherwise bring ; 
for although a State is bound to receive and permit the 
sale by the importer of any article of commerce which 
Congress authorizes to be imported, yet it is not bound 
to furnish a market for it, nor to abstain from the pass- 
ing of any law which it may deem necessary or advisable 
to guard the health or morals of its citizens, and which 
does not prevent such importation and primary sale. 

9. It is not denied that ardent spirits, distilled liquors, 
ale, and beer are subjects of exchange, barter, and traffic, 



THURSDAY AFTERKOO^. 305 

like any other commodity in which the right of traffic 
exists, and are so recognized by the usages of the com- 
mercial world, the laws of Congress, and the decisions of 
the courts. 

10. But while the right of transportation into another 
State involves, by necessary implication, the right to 
make a sale there, that right is limited to a sale of the 
unbroken imported package, and is confined to the first 
sale by the non-resident importer, by which act alone, 
say the court, it would become mingled with the com- 
mon mass of property within the State. 

11. To permit each State to decide for itself what 
articles of commerce may and what may not be imported 
into it would be to defeat one of the great objects for 
which the union was formed, and would introduce 
commercial anarchy and confusion in place of that unity 
and uniformity which the Constitution intended to se- 
cure by means of Congressional regulation of interstate 
commerce. 

12. The great Kansas Prohibition decision is approved 
in the present case, and the right of the people affirmed, 
with the exception specified, to adopt such measures as 
they may deem proper for the protection of the public 
morals, health, and safety, the security and protection 
of persons and property, and the prevention of idleness, 
disorder, pauperism, and crime. 

III. Comments on the Decision — Its Relation to 
Temperance Reform. — 1. The court seem to say that 
Congress may authorize the several States to prohibit the 
importation of intoxicating liquors ; but of course Con- 
gress cannot delegate back to the States the exercise of 
any power that the Constitution vests in Congress to be 
exercised by that body. Doubtless Congress may, either 
absolutely or on certain conditions, forbid the transpor- 
tation of any intoxicant on any line of interstate com- 



30G NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

merce, by land or by water, under any penalties it might 
see fit to prescribe, and might make all the persons and 
property concerned liable for any violation of the law 
applicable to the case. Congress might prohibit the im- 
portation of any article of commerce either under speci- 
fied circumstances or altogether, and might require 
bonds against any invasion of the proper province of the 
State laws, under color of the rights of interstate com- 
merce. A simple prohibition of interstate commerce in 
intoxicating liquors would be the death-knell of the 
drink traffic. 

2. But as the local government of a city may supple- 
ment and render more complete, by its ordinances, the 
laws of a State, so doubtless may the States, by their 
legislation, make more efficient such general regulations 
as Congress may prescribe. 

3. The Iowa decision does not protect any sale made 
by a resident of the State, for that would be domestic 
commerce. It applies only to sales made by non-resi- 
dent importers. It does not apply to any use of any 
article of commerce by any person. Application and 
use are under State control. 

The Iowa decision protects non-resident property. As 
soon as it has fully become resident property, the State 
jurisdiction attaches. 

4. Manifestly the Iowa decision should not be so con- 
strued and applied as to give non-residents any greater 
local privileges and immunities than are enjoyed by 
citizens of the locality. The Constitution of the United 
States only aims to secure, in every State, to the citizens 
of all the other States, u equal privileges and immuni- 
ties.' ' 

5. The habit of speaking of the police power of the 
States, in contradistinction to the commerce power of 
the Nation, seems to have led to an idea that they are 



THURSDAY AFTERtfOOK. 307 

in somo way antagonistic to each other, whereas in truth 
they are of the same nature. The States regulate their 
internal affairs by virtue of the police power retained by 
them, and Congress regulates commerce with foreign 
nations and among the several States by virtue of the 
police power entrusted to it. The power is the same. 
Only the agencies of its exercise are different. Whatever 
the States may do within their province, by virtue of 
their police power, the Nation may do within its prov- 
ince by virtue of its police power. 

6. In the Kansas case, the Supreme Court decided 
that no State Legislature can bargain away the public 
health nor the public morals ; that the people them- 
selves cannot do so, much less their servants. Govern- 
ment, says the Court, is organized with a view to their 
preservation, and cannot divest itself of the power to 
provide for them. The court cites an earlier decision in 
which the same doctrine is declared. The same rule 
must necessarily apply to the powers vested in Congress. 
Neither can they be bargained away nor transferred to 
any other authority, but must remain and be exercised 
as the Constitution requires, to promote the general 
welfare of the people. 

7. The still more recent case of the Minnesota Dressed 
Beef Law confirms the decision in the Iowa Saloon 
case. The Minnesota statute forbade the sale of dressed 
beef in the State, unless the same had been inspected 
and certified in the State, and before slaughter. But 
the Supreme Court of the United States, in an opinion 
delivered May 19th, 1890, held the Minnesota law void, 
as an attempt to u regulate commerce among the several 
States. " 

8. The influence of the decision of the Supreme Court 
of the United States in the Iowa Beer Case, or the u Un- 
broken Package" case, as it is also called, on the future 



308 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

of Temperance Reform, will be very great and far- 
reaching. 

It transfers the regulation of the Liquor Traffic to the 
field of national politics, excepting merely local trans- 
fers within the limits of a single State. 

It silences forever the claim that national politics has 
nothing to do with the drink trade, but that it belongs 
wholly to the internal policy and local governments of 
the several States. 

Senators and representatives in Congress must hence- 
forth be as ready to answer questions concerning the reg- 
ulation, restriction, or abolition of the commerce in in- 
toxicants, as questions relating to the tariff, internal im- 
provements, or civil service reform. 

Party platforms can no longer be silent on a subject 
which deeply interests the great body of the American 
people. Presidential candidates will no longer be at 
liberty to ignore that subject. 

9. Under that decision the Temperance Question 
will advance to the front as the greatest economic 
and political issue, and at the same time the great- 
est moral and social issue of the time. 

In comparison with the vast sum of nine hundred mill- 
ions of dollars, to which the liquor traffic annually 
amounts in the United States, the supposed treasury 
surplus is a small matter. 

In comparison with the awful waste and destruction 
of life, liberty, property, peace, comfort, and happiness 
that are wrought every year by the drink traffic, the 
losses and injuries inflicted on the people by all other 
causes are insignificant in magnitude. It has passed into 
a proverb that for three-fourths of all the poverty, 
beggary, disease, insanity, disorder, and crime which 
burden the people, the drink traffic is alone responsi- 
ble. 



THUKSDAY AFTERNOON. 309 

10. But with that appalling fact everywhere recog- 
nized by the leaders of mankind, the Liquor Traffic has 
assumed a more defiant attitude, and has entered into 
party politics for the avowed purpose of securing protec- 
tion as the reward of partisan service. It contributes 
money for campaign purposes ; masses its votes for the 
candidates who promise protection, in case of success ; 
and supports a lobby at every capital to oppose unfriend- 
ly legislation. Good government is impossible, and the 
hope of civil service reform is utterly vain, wherever the 
influence of the liquor saloon prevails. The first neces- 
sity of progress is the utter destruction of the political 
power of the drink traffic. 

However the friends of Temperance, law, and order 
may otherwise differ, surely they must agree that the 
Liquor Traffic shall be at least so far crippled and 
abolished that it will be unable to contend with patriot- 
ism for the control of government ; unable to contend 
with the school and the church for the control of the 
young ; unable to produce more than a very small part 
of its present horrible harvest of pauperism, insanity, 
and crime. 

11. In his vigorous and able paper in the Forum for 
May, 1890, on u Government by Rumsellers," Dr. How- 
ard Crosby says, " Were all right-minded voters to vote, 
and to vote according to conscience and not according 
to party, the rum power would be suppressed at once. 
The saloon would then be destroyed. This tap-root of 
evil annihilated, public office would be in purer hands ; 
legislation would run in moral lines, and the people would 
be more prosperous and contented. This," he adds, " is 
the most important question now before the American 
people. Tariff, railroads, the negro, the fisheries, 
Canadian reciprocity, Pan-American Alliance, and the 
silver question, are all of secondary consequence, when 



310 HATIOSTAL TEMPEKANCE CONGRESS. 

compared with this matter of the fundamental moials of 
legislation and society." 

This is sound doctrine. But Dr. Crosby has never 
been known as a Temperance fanatic. On the contrary, 
he is ranked as one of the most conservative of Temper- 
ance leaders. 

12. What modern party politics has become under 
the influence of the rum power and the corruptions 
with which it is notoriously allied is well indicated by 
a recent utterance of a distinguished party leader, who is 
reported to have said, u The purification of politics is 
an iridescent dream. Government is force. Politics is 
a battle for supremacy. Parties are the armies. The 
Decalogue and the Golden Rule have no place in a po- 
litical campaign. The object is success. To defeat the 
antagonist and expel the party in power is the purpose. 
.... This modern cant about the corruption of poli- 
tics is fatiguing in the extreme." 

There was a time when God and Humanity, when vir- 
tue and morals and patriotism were the war cries of po- 
litical action, and the decision of the National Supreme 
Court in the Iowa Beer Case opens the way for a restora- 
tion of that time, with more than its pristine glory. The 
American people will now demand that those who ad- 
minister their national government shall once more put 
the welfare of the people in the highest place, as the 
supreme object of party existence and success. 

The days of political leaders who teach that the Ten 
Commandments may be violated with impunity and the 
Golden Rule trampled under foot without shame are 
already numbered, and they will soon retire from the 
public service, to return thereto no more. New leaders, 
who love justice and honor and virtue, will take their 
places, and then the long-waiting work of government 
reform will be prosecuted to success. 



THURSDAY AFTERNOON. 311 

13. The " Unbroken Package Decision" will undoubt- 
edly unite the Temperance sentiment of the country on 
national lines of progress. The declaration of the Su- 
preme Court that the Liquor Traffic is, in a very impor- 
tant respect, subject to the national power, will do more 
than any previous cause to enlarge, strengthen, and ad- 
vance the general movement of the people against the 
alarming evils of that traffic. Under the influence of 
that decision the friends of Temperance, law, and order 
in different parts of the country will feel united by a com- 
mon interest, a common purpose, and a common line of 
action. Local Option will be overshadowed by Na- 
tional Option. At all the many points where the sys- 
tems of State regulation or repression touch the National 
system of trade and transportation, new questions will 
arise, the discussion and settlement of which will exer- 
cise a powerful educative influence. The decision under 
consideration has already advanced the Temperance ques- 
tion to a position of importance and dignity higher than 
it has ever before occupied. The political leaders who 
have been accustomed to greet the Temperance question 
with a sneer will henceforth, if they are wise, salute it 
with uncovered heads. 

14. As to politics and parties, it is not difficult to 
speak. "No vote ever taken in this country can be re- 
garded as a true measure of the Temperance sentiment 
of the people, because no vote has yet been take*n under 
circumstances that could command the ballots of all 
who are at heart opposed to the liquor saloon. Even 
in the so-called Prohibition States the abolition of the 
saloon has been coupled with and impeded by other 
questions, on which the friends of Temperance were not 
fully agreed. 

In some way and at some time, in spite of all efforts 
to keep them apart, the Temperance Republicans and the 



312 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

Temperance Democrats will get together on the issue of 
abolishing the saloon, and then the impending revolution 
will march straight forward to victory. 

And when that shall have been accomplished, the re- 
cruits from the old political parties may, if they will, 
return to their former associations. But it may be con- 
fidently affirmed that if the friends of Temperance, law, 
and order could be gathered from all existing political 
organizations and united for the abolition of the saloon, 
they would constitute a party of the very highest intel- 
ligence, virtue, courage, and patriotism, qualified to 
deal in an adequate way with every other public ques- 
tion that now interests the American people. 

The liquor saloon and its vote have corrupted our 
municipal, State, and national politics to such an extent 
that the abolition of the saloon and the destruction of 
its political influence is now the indispensable condition 
of American progress. 

There is one way in which the formation of such a 
union party may be effectually prevented. It is by one 
or both of the present powerful parties making war on 
the dram-shop and destroying it. To both of them one 
of the greatest of opportunities is offered. It is for them 
to say whether they will improve it. Of one thing we 
may be sure. The liquor saloon will not always hold its 
present powerful place in American politics. We may 
also feej sure that its final overthrow will be powerfully 
promoted by the decision of the Supreme Court in the 
Iowa Beer Import case. 

The toleration or abolition of the liquor saloon is em- 
phatically a question of law and politics. Personal 
temperance and Total Abstinence are chiefly questions of 
, morals and conscience. By confining the legal and po- 
litical warfare to the abolition of the saloon and dram- 
selling in all forms, and committing the cause of per- 



THURSDAY AFTERNOON 313 

sonal temperance and Total Abstinence to the churches 
and the Temperance societies, the American people can 
be massed in an irresistible political army for the destruc- 
tion of the dram-shop, and an equally powerful organized 
moral force for the promotion of Temperance and its 
attendant blessings. Unrelenting war against the grog- 
shop till it shall be driven from the land, and earnest 
Moral Suasion for the advancement of personal temper- 
ance and virtue — this is the Temperance policy for which, 
at this time, the American people are prepared. 

"With the drinking saloon abolished, the recruiting 
places of drunkenness will be closed, and then the moral 
forces of the country will easily complete the grand 
work of Temperance, Law and Order. 

Professor Wilkinson : Mr. President, may I, sir, at this 
point, state a fact which I think is important to the 
proceedings of this body ? The hearty thanks of the 
National Temperance Congress are due, and if resolu- 
tions would not be moved out of order, I would move 
that they be hereby rendered to the Broadway Taber- 
nacle Church, for their characteristic and traditional 
generosity in granting the free use of their spacious edi- 
fice for the sessions of this body. I read this as a notice. 

The President : All of you who sympathize with Pro- 
fessor Wilkinson's feelings toward the dear brethren of 
the Tabernacle will say, " Aye*" 

There was a hearty response on the part of the audi- 
ence. 

Professor Wilkinson: This Congress desires to testify 
their grateful recognition of the important services ren- 
dered them by Dr. C. F. Deems, for the exceedingly watch- 
ful, wise, fair, firm, and genial chairmanship throughout 
the course of these proceedings. All who would vote for 
that resolution, except that resolutions would be moved 
out of order, will please rise to your feet. 



314 NATIONAL TEMPERAKCE CONGRESS, 

All present rose. 

Professor Wilkinson : There are various ways of doing 
things, and we have got around the President once. 
The subject of 

Temperance Work among the Young 

was opened by Mrs. Mary H. Hunt, National Superin- 
tendent of Temperance Instruction of the Woman's 
Christian Temperance Union, who said : 

Mr. President and Friends : This very kind introduc- 
tion, the history of the past hours, and I was going to 
say the looks of your faces, but it hardly warrants it> 
reminds me of a story (perhaps you read it — it went the 
rounds of the papers) of three men who laid a wager as 
to which should out-talk the other. One was a West- 
erner, one was fro-m the South, and the other was a Bos- 
ton Yankee. The three were shut in a room together. 
At the expiration of the time the door was opened. The 
Westerner was dead, the Southerner was just gasping 
his last breath, and the Boston Yankee was whispering 
in his ear. But you are safe, friends, in the hands of 
so fair and yet so rigid a President, although I am from 
Boston. 

As I understand it, Mr. President, this Congress is 
called for the purpose of finding and uniting on remedies 
that will prevent the vice of Intemperance, rather than 
dwelling upon its acknowledged evils. Therefore, 
while pitying the heart that could, unmoved, consider 
those evils, I will not give them here one moment of 
my fifteen, but turn at once to the question, " What is the 
cause of these evils that should move with pity a heart 
of stone ?" and the question, " What shall we, what can 
we do to prevent them ?" 

What is the Cause ? — Does some one reply, The saloon, 
the Liquor Traffic is the cause? The saloon is the 



THURSDAY AFTERHOOST. 315 

personation of the Liquor Traffic and the head-centre 
of the abominations that blot and endanger our civiliza- 
tion. But when we look a little closer, we find the sa- 
loon is also the disbursing point for beverages that a ma- 
jority of the people of this country believe in and want 
to drink (the people being, in this case, the men, or the 
voters). 

The fact that a majority of the American people be- 
lieve in and want to drink alcoholic liquors is the first 
cause of the evils of Intemperance in our midst. 

The Demand. — This popular belief and desire consti- 
tutes the demand that makes the saloon a possibility. 
The saloon is a result. But the attempt to regulate the 
saloon, whether by High License or Low, will never be a 
success, because nothing is more clearly proven by both 
science and experience than the fact that it is the na- 
ture of a little alcohol used as a beverage to create an 
appetite for more alcohol. Therefore, moderate drink- 
ing, no matter how elegant may be its environments, will 
always open the way for drunkenness and its consequent 
evils and vices, and the saloon, the liquor-selling apoth- 
ecary, the hotel bar, or the corner grocery, while supply- 
ing an existing demand, will at the same time foster and 
increase that demand, and thus become self-perpetuating 
results of alcoholic habits among the people. 

Alcohol an Outlaw. —Because of this unnatural appetite 
for itself which alcohol has the power to create, it is by 
nature an outlaw in any quantity as a beverage, and the 
evils of Intemperance will never cease until it is outlawed 
from human habits. How can we outlaw it is only a 
question of remedy again. 

Personal Prohibition First. ~~ Under this government of 
the people alcohol must first be abolished from the 
habits of the majority before its traffic can be prohibited 
— that is self-evident ; for as long as a majority believe 



316 NATIONAL TEMPERAKCE COKGRESS. 

in alcohol, they will drink it, because they like it, and 
as long as they drink it they will vote for its sale. Total 
Abstinence among the people is the object sought by 
Prohibition, but Prohibition is itself impossible until a 
majority of the voters are already Total Abstainers. The 
saloon, as we have seen, is a self-perpetuating result of 
this demand of the majority for alcohol. Legal Prohi- 
bition is a result of the absence of that demand. 

Is there Hope ?— Is there, then, no hope in this inter- 
sphering and complex problem ? Does not that depend 
upou our readiness to recognize and apply the remedies 
that will reach and remove the cause ? Law is embodied 
sentiment, but we must have the sentiment before we 
can embody it into statutes. Sentiment against alcohol 
as a beverage is what is demanded in this case. 

A Difference. — There is a wide difference between 
sentiment against alcoholic beverages and sentiment 
against the saloon. The latter does not always imply 
the former, and as long as we lack the former our troubles 
will remain, for that lack is the cause. In 1888, we 
lacked, in Massachusetts, on the whole vote cast, only 
2000 men to make a majority for local Prohibition — that 
is, against License, under Local Option law ; but a ma- 
jority of over 44,000 of the same men, a few weeks later, 
voted against forever prohibiting by organic law the 
manufacture and sale of alcoholic liquors. This instance 
clearly illustrates the wide difference between sentiment 
against alcohol and sentiment against the saloon. The 
gentleman who does not want the saloon on his street, or 
in his ward or suburb, will vote " No License" there ; 
but he will not vote so to abolish the manufacture and 
sale that he cannot, without becoming accessory to law- 
breaking, get the glass of wine or beer that he likes and 
believes in, and, therefore, Massachusetts and many other 
States are disgraced by the legalized saloon. 



THURSDAY AFTERNOON. 31? 

The Remedy. — Universal sentiment against alcohol, 
founded on the intelligent conviction of the truth that it 
is a dangerous and seductive poison, entailing such dis- 
astrous effects that it should be outlawed from human 
habits, must take the place of the unintelligent and con- 
fiding belief that there is no danger in drinking it moder- 
ately, before the horrors of intemperance will cease to be. 

Remedy too Late. — The most convincing argument that 
science can present will have small influence with a per- 
son who is already the victim of an alcoholic appetite. 
He knows by bitter experience that alcohol is a poison, 
he feels its virus in his blood ; but, like Samson in the 
lap of Delilah, he is shorn of the power to break the 
spell. In the beginning it was a question of intelligence 
with him. If he had been taught the dangerous and 
poisonous character of the drink before he had taken the 
first glass, if he had understood the scientific connection 
between the first glass and the drunkard's fate, before 
appetite was formed, and while his will was yet a reg- 
nant power, he might have been saved. For him we are 
too late ! 

The Real Fanatic— -The moderate drinker, who impa- 
tiently tells you that he can stop if he wants to, but 
never seems to want to, will scout the most overwhelm- 
ing and positive proof that alcohol is a poison. "We 
shall ordinarily make small headway in attempts to 
convince him. He sniffs at the testimony of modern 
science, and behind your back, and sometimes before your 
face, calls you a " fanatic." Poor fellow ! He does 
not know that he himself is the greatest fanatic ; for a 
fanatic is one influenced, as he is, by prejudice and not 
by reason. Unless saved by the u grace held down by 
the nail-pierced palms, " these will each in their turn 
pass on to the hopeless beyond, and join the vast army 
of alcohol's victims. 



318 XATIOtfAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

The Impressionable Class. — But, Mr. President, there 
is a large and more impressionable class to whom we may- 
carry the truth against alcoholic drinks with an assured 
hope that it w^ill influence their lives for intelligent Total 
Abstinence. These are the children and youth in the 
public schools of our land. These are now accessible to 
us as never before. It is estimated that there are at 
least 18,000,000 children of school age in our country. 
Yonder silken flag, that in the Paris Exposition last 
summer floated over the American exhibit of the De- 
partment of Scientific Temperance in Public Schools, 
announced to all visitors who could read English that 
there are now 12,000,000 children in America under 
Temperance Education Laws. 

Our Present Field. — Before the admission of the new 
States, there were twenty-seven States and all the Terri- 
tories under some more or less stringent form of this 
legislation. Before Idaho and Wyoming came in, new 
States, so far as heard from, had either adopted the na- 
tional or some more stringent law. North of the Poto- 
mac, only New Jersey and Indiana are out of the fold. 
It is eight years since the first law was enacted, and now 
it is a question of a little more time before, with God's 
help, we shall be able to take the black cap off from 
every State on the map, and the entire Republic will be 
under Temperance Education Laws. 

Books and Methods Ready. — At first the lack of expe- 
rience in teaching the study, and of well-graded and ac- 
curate school text-books as radical as the truth, was a 
great hindrance ; but it has been overcome. Well 
graded text-books in large variety are now ready, and 
clearly defined school-room plans or courses of study to 
fit all kinds and grades of schools have been prepared 
and are being sent broadcast over the land. Experience 
ehows that three lessons per week for fourteen weeks of 



THURSDAY AFTERNOON. 319 

the school year between the Primary and second grade 
of the High School will cover the subject and not un- 
duly crowd other branches. 

The field is ready, and is being planted in tens of thou- 
sands of cases. Why not in all ? What lack we ? Be- 
tween the course of study with the right text- books and 
the children whom the law says shall be taught what 
alcohol is and what it will do to them if they drink it, 
stands, in many cases, an unsympathetic school-board, 
who carelessly or purposely are minimizing or evading 
the law which the Temperance people are not taking the 
trouble to enforce. The teachers, as a whole, are ready 
to do their part, but they must do what the boards 
order ; and if the board orders a course of study filled 
absolutely full of other topics, leaving no time for this, 
and if text-books on this subject, written in language 
that neither teacher nor pupil can understand, and that 
do not teach the truths the law requires, are put into the 
schools, it is the fault of the board, and the teachers are 
comparatively helpless. 

The Need of the Hour. — Temperance men on our school- 
boards is the need of the hour — a need that can easily 
be met if the Christian and Temperance people of each 
community would unite to secure it, instead of waiting 
for that impossible law that would enforce itself. With 
two or three exceptions there is more force in the laws 
that require this study in our many States and Terri- 
tories than there is in the laws that require arithmetic 
taught. That law is enforced because the people want 
it enforced. 

The Future Voters. — Our future voters, law-makers, 
politicians, governors, and presidents are in school to-day, 
and the law says they shall there be taught the truth 
about alcohol ; and just as sure as truth will dispel 
error, as light will dispel darkness, that truth thus early 



320 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

implanted will make the sentiment against it that must 
be made if it is ever abolished. We said that Total Ab- 
stinence among the people is the object sought by Pro- 
hibition, but Prohibition itself is impossible until a ma- 
jority of the voters are already Total Abstainers. From 
the school-houses, Mr. President, are to come our Ab- 
stainers, who will make Prohibition possible. 

Organized Effort. — If this great work of warning our 
children and youth against alcoholic liquors is to include 
all our children to-day and thus save our nation to-mor- 
row, skilful and organized efforts, especially in our cities, 
must be made now to secure Temperance men and women 
on our school boards, as well as superintendents and teach- 
ers who are in sympathy with the law and its most faith- 
ful enforcement. 

Common Ground. — Is there not here a common ground 
on which all Temperance people and all well-wishers of 
good order can unite and work hand in hand ? Can we 
fail to do it without incurring guilt, in responsibility for 
the young lives we might have saved ? 

Not a Long Range Shot. — Do you say this is a shot at 
long range, and that you cannot wait for the children to 
grow up ? You want the saloon at once and forever 
abolished. Yes, my friend, we want the same thing ; 
but under this government by majorities we shall be 
obliged to wait until the majority agree with us in want- 
ing it abolished. But the children grow up very quick- 
ly. The curly-headed boy whom you loved better than 
your own life as you tucked him in his crib only yester- 
day, seemingly, is to-day a bearded young man, a voter, 
by your side. 

New Recruits. — They tell us that in our country about 
half a million new voters cast their maiden ballots each 
year. If we preempt these new voters for intelligent 
Total Abstinence we shall soon have our needed majority, 



THURSDAY AFTERNOOX. 321 

The School Leads the Home. — Already these trained 
youths are influencing the homes. A few weeks ago at 
a breakfast table^ in a home of wealth the events of the 
previous evening's party were under discussion. A boy 
of thirteen gravely remarked, " I don't think it is very 
polite to give our visitors poison." 

" What can you mean, my son ?" the mother replied. 
" We had the best caterer in the city." 

c< Yes," the boy answered, "but alcohol is a poison, 
and there was from .five to seventeen per cent alcohol in 
every glass of the wine he furnished." 

Discussion followed, in which this schoolboy rehearsed 
the lessons on Scientific Temperance he had learned in 
school. "We have decided to have no more wine in our 
house," the mother said, as she told the story. 

Reinforces Other Teaching. — The Temperance teachings 
of the Church, the Sunday-school, the Band of Hope, 
and the Home have a more powerful emphasis for the 
youth who has learned at school that alcohol is a poison. 

Focalizing Growing Sentiment. — Let us gather up from 
time to time every bit of sentiment against alcohol and 
against the saloon as fast as it is made, and focalize it 
into the utmost law against them that advancing public 
sentiment will bear, keeping up all the time our work 
of making sentiment by faithful scientific Temperance 
teaching in the school. 

The Acres of the Future. — Truth planted in the mind 
of the child is good seed sown in the acres of the near 
future. 

Our First Duty. — We, the Temperance and Christian 
people of to-day, must be true to our high trust and 
obligation to enforce these Temperance Education laws. 
Do I mean to imply that the enforcement of these is the 
sum of all our Temperance duty ? No, indeed ! We 
must do everything ; but we must do this first, and with 



322 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

all our might. If we do, a vast army, with the buoyancy 
of youth in its tread, will come over the hills of a near 
morning to make short work of the saloon. 

The President : Now you see, since you have gone and 
taken that action at the instigation of the professor from 
Tarrytown, I am f ree. I have my bill of health. I don't 
know whether wife has come into the church. If not, 
she will see it in the papers to-morrow, that you say I 
behaved well in the presidency. Hereafter I will behave 
just as I please. I can take all the time. lean rest and 
tell stories. I am going to introduce another person, 
who is my friend-in-law. I have neper had but two 
friends-in-law, but they were both presidents. One was 
the President of the Southern Confederacy, Mr. Jefferson 
Davis. I was very fond of Mr. Davis's wife. Mr. Davis 
knew that that was the member of the family I was fond 
of, and so when we met one day, he said, " I suppose I 
may at least claim you as my friend-in-law ; you and 
my wife are devoted friends." And that is the way I 
came to have that relation of a friend-in-law. Now I 
have another friend-in-law, and the way it comes about 
is this. He is not my friend particularly, but my son's 
friend, and every time we meet he makes it a point to 
throw it at me that I am Ned Deems' s father ; and that 
is the way he comes to be my friend-in-law ; because, 
you see, at Princeton Ned Deems happened to be one of 
his boys, and loved him so that the President of Prince- 
ton College can never forget it. Now my friend-in-law, 
the Rev. Dr. McCosh, will address the Congress. 

Rev. James McCosh, D.D., LL.D., spoke as follows : 
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : You see that I 
am so far advanced in life that you need not be under 
any fear that I will be able to occupy you any length of 
time. I promise you that our President, who is a very 
rigid man, and very properly so in such a meeting, will 



THURSDAY AFTERNOON. 323 

not get any rule that will stop me, for I will stop myself 
before he is able to lay hold of me. I think that this 
convention is formed upon very sound principles, very 
expedient principles, principles that we need to adopt 
in the present day. It is said, in the very opening, 
" We, the undersigned, representing almost every shade 
of anti-liquor views." Now, ladies and gentlemen, let 
me, as an old man, strongly advise you to combine, all, 
men and women and children, that are opposed to In- 
temperance. I tell you I have been grieved more than I 
can tell, when I find some Temperance people, zealous 
and devoted and good in every way, and whom I have 
often been seeking to help in what they are prosecuting 
— when I find them speaking more bitterly against some 
people who take a somewhat different view of Temper- 
ance than they do, than against the anti-temperance 
people. I have lamented this excessively, and I have 
found it in all countries. I belong to three countries. 
I belong to Scotland, I belong to Ireland, I belong to 
America, and in every one of these countries I have 
found that what is needed — I don't say above all things, 
but what is most needed at this present time, is that 
there should be a combination and hearty cooperation 
of all who are opposed to the Liquor Traffic in any form. 
Heretofore they have been arguing, not simply against 
the liquor people, but against the views held by their 
neighbors ; and I think one of the happiest effects of 
this Congress (and this is what has made me come here) 
is that here we are united ; and whenever you see a body 
of men united for the purpose of stopping this traffic, let 
us say, " We wish them success ;" if at all possible, let 
us join them, and as we do so we shall find, in the course 
of time, just the best method. Some would say that it 
is this plan, some that plan, and there is no agreement 
But I think the time is coming when we 



324 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE COXGRESS. 

shall find the principle upon which I have acted for 
forty years past in the old country, in Scotland and Ire- 
land and in this country, that whenever I find a band of 
men seeking to lessen the traffic, whenever I find them 
seeking to combine to carry out Prohibition, I invariably 
join them, and lend my little aid to encourage and 
strengthen them. I will say to you, ladies and gentlemen, 
that our business now is to cease our internal quarrels. 
We have a powerful and united enemy against us, united 
by the strongest of all motives, by motives of self-inter- 
est, and what we have to do is to combine to face the 
enemy, and only then will we succeed. 

I had something else to say to you, but the lady who 
spoke before me has introduced that. That is to say, 
the care we should take of the young, to see that they 
are instructed in these principles. I may tell you that I 
think this is the most important means we can employ ; 
that in comparison with that, any other sinks into insig- 
nificance. I can testify from having tried it with chil- 
dren in schools and in colleges, that there is a preparation 
in the mind of the child for joining this cause. If you 
take the proper steps, and all in kindness, you will find 
very few boys and gills who will not be prepared to 
enter it. We must use all means that are allowable, all 
means that are countenanced by the Word of God. 
While we use all other means, I say that this is by fur 
the most important means. I say we should enter every 
school. There are a number of people here from various 
parts of the country, and it is quite clear that you are 
very zealous to promote this cause. The first thing to 
do would not be, perhaps, so much to deal with the 
politicians. They are a difficult class to deal with, and in 
dealing with them your best plan is to deal with their 
constituents ; and if you get their constituents, you will be 
sure to get the politicians. I say the first thing that you 



THURSDAY AFTERNOON. 325 

should do should be to enter every school and see that 
every scholar knows of the evils that arise from the use 
of intoxicating liquors. What we especially require, in 
my humble opinion, is to see that there is, I do not say 
necessarily, a Temperance society organized, but that 
there is a Temperance movement in every Sunday-school. 
You will not get all the teachers to do it, but a great body 
of them will. I can testify to this. I think this is cer- 
tain, that you will get nine-tenths— perhaps ninety-nine 
out of a hundred — in the Sunday-schools, if you take the 
proper steps with them. Encourage them, send your 
agents to them, and you will find that you have a means 
of stirring the young in nearly all the many Sunday- 
schools. We boast of those Sunday-schools in America, 
and I think we are entitled, so far, to boast of them, if 
we do so in the proper spirit. But I think in every Sun- 
day-school there should be proper efforts made to show 
the evil3 of intemperance. I like practical methods, and 
there is one thing that I would like especially to see 
done, as I believe an incalculable good will arise from 
it. There are a great many anti-liquor articles and 
pamphlets, all useful. The more of them the better. 
We need more. But I think there should be one book, 
not large — one text-book written by a man of pure sci- 
ence. He may or may not be a Temperance man. That 
is no matter. He must be a physiologist ; he must know 
the human frame. He must know how agents act upon 
it, and he must sit down and write a little volume of 
perhaps fifty or one hundred pages. Let him not intro- 
duce any Temperance into it. There would be great ob- 
jections to it on the part of many. But let him sit down 
and simply write a scientific work, with nothing but 
science in it, showing how intoxicating liquors are a 
poison to the frame. Let him do that, and then he does 
not need to make any practical application. We all 



326 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

know how novels produce their effect. It is a very bad 
thing for a novelist to sit down, at the end, and say, 
" The lessons to be derived are, first, this ; second, that ; 
third, that." There is apt to be a great resentment to 
that. What is done by the novelist ? He produces the 
influence indirectly, unconsciously, without the people 
knowing it. He don't draw the lesson. He flatters the 
reader until he draws the lesson himself. And what I 
would have is a purely scientific book — only the evils 
arising in our bodily frames by the use of liquors point- 
ed out scientifically, so that no man could deny it. 
And then let us go to the State Legislature and the Gen- 
eral Legislature, and to the Education Office, and insist 
that that book be used in every school in the United 
States. I believe you would do more good in that way 
than by a great many of the operations that you are per- 
forming. You would bring up the young with antipathy 
to this from the beginning. Their whole prepossessions 
would be against it, and they would be ready to resist 
the temptation. We must deal with the young. At the 
same time, I believe there is not a more important thing 
(we don't allow credit for it) than to find families allow- 
ing the children to take intoxicating liquors. I tell you 
it is a very bad thing when these children see their fa- 
thers and mothers partaking of these stimulants ; and 
the conclusion they will not tell you, but the conclusion 
is there, u We will, by and by, when we get beyond be- 
ing children, rise up and take these stimulants too." 
And T think parents will learn a good deal from the 
children. In many cases I believe they will be the most 
effectual agents for reaching the parents. And when 
the children stand up manfully or womanly, and say, 
" We cannot partake of these intoxicating liquors," I 
believe it is the best way of reaching the parents. There 
will be no other way so effective. And I believe that 



THURSDAY AFTERKOOK. 327 

we should aim especially at reaching not only every 
school, but especially every Sunday-school, 

Allow me to add that, while I am interested in schools, 
I am still more interested in colleges. I have been some 
thirty-eight years a teacher in two of our higher univer- 
sities, and I think that it is of the utmost moment that 
presidents of colleges and professors in colleges should 
lend their utmost influence to secure our educated young 
men, who are always the most influential with the com- 
munity. It is important to get the great body of the 
college graduates to be anti-intemperance. You would 
find that it would soon spread throughout the country. 
So let us see that, in looking to other institutions, we 
look to our colleges. Especially let us see that tempta- 
tions are withdrawn from our young men in colleges. 
Oh, it was an awful thing for us to have a great many 
students coming all the way from San Francisco and all 
those Western States, and to see half a dozen or a dozen 
places open for the sale of intoxicating liquors, and in- 
viting them to enter. I, in my incumbency at Prince- 
ton College, set myself vigorously to meet this evil, and 
I am happy to be able to state to you that when I left 
Princeton College I did not leave a single saloon in that 
city. We gave rooms to each of those pupils, and we 
laid it down as a rule, "If we give you that room, there 
is to be no intoxicating liquor introduced into that 
room." I don't say that our college was perfect — very 
far from it. But I am able to testify that the results 
of these restraining measures were most beneficial, and 
that among the six hundred young men that we had, or 
more, there was very little trouble. We had times of 
breaking up, which we took care to discern, but there 
was very little of that vice which is producing so much 
evil in this country, and not only among our working- 
men, but among our highest and best educated men. 



328 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

And now, in closing, I say that what we need now is 
to combine. I think that there should be a combina- 
tion of all the agencies. Some are anti-saloon men. I 
join them. Some want High License ; I join them. 
Some want Prohibition ; I join them. Let us all proceed 
in this way, and I believe that from this great meeting, 
with you, sir, as the president of it, an impulse will be 
produced that will propagate itself all over this country. 

Rev. James H. Darlington, of Brooklyn, was the next 
speaker. He said : 

I am very glad indeed to follow Dr. McCosh. As an 
old Princeton boy I followed htm for a number of years, 
and I am very glad to follow him now in this case. And 
I want to say that one of the grandest times when we 
had to follow him at Princeton was the time when he 
surpassed us all by leading us in the effort to clear out 
all rumshops from Princeton, and the students and the 
president did it. Some of the high-toned professors 
and the other high-toned people were very much sur- 
prised to find that the boys had won, and driven them 
out. I am here to-day as a representative of the 
Knights of Temperance of the Episcopal Church. There 
are some of the Methodist and Presbyterian brethren, 
whom I love very much, who think the Episcopal Church 
is very slow on the Temperance question. Be careful ! 
Sometimes those who are the slowest to wake up get 
there first. Look out ! You know that the Roman 
Catholic Church is the church of discipline. The Epis- 
copal Church is very much like it — a church of disci- 
pline. It takes a good while to get going, but when it 
is going it is like a machine that can't stop going. The 
League of the Cross, in the Roman Catholic Church, is 
doing splendid work. The last year, in Brooklyn, in 
trying to fight the saloons, the best fighters we had, the 
men, who were the most regular at their work, were 



THURSDAY AFTERNOON. 329 

Father Fransioli, Father Barry, Father Dewey, and Fa- 
ther O'Hare — all of them Fathers ; and I wish the whole 
world were filled with such Fathers. You know w T hat 
excommunication means in the Roman Church. Father 
O'Hare read the minor excommunication from his chan- 
cel against every one engaged in the iniquitous business 
of liquor selling. You know what that means. And 
Sunday after Sunday he went through Greenpoint, giv- 
ing up his masses to the assistant priest, that he might 
find out those of his people that patronized these places. 
"We are going to have powerful cooperation there before 
long. 

What is the ' ' Knights of Temperance V ' It is a church 
order in the Episcopal Church. It takes in young men 
from fourteen years to twenty-one — the most dangerous 
period of life. It has now sixty companies. It was only 
started four years ago. It has twenty-five hundred 
members, pledged to Total Abstinence, under military 
discipline. The motto is like the old Eoman motto. 
The initials are S. P. Q. R. Any one familiar with Ro- 
man history will see that we mean by that, " Sobrietas, 
Puritasque Reverentia" — " Sobriety, Purity, and Rev- 
erence ;" and each young man is pledged to that. This 
society is a part of the Church Temperance Society. 
Some one says that this Church Temperance Society 
stands for any kind of Temperance. Yes, I am glad it 
does. It is on the line of Temperance as much as this 
convention is on the line of Temperance. I am glad to 
say that I am, and have been since before St. John ran 
for the Presidency, a third-party Prohibitionist. And 
yet I glory in the fact that Mr. Graham, our representa- 
tive, is a High License man. Why do I do it ? Listen ! 
Because our church represents ail classes of Temperance 
men. Our church order is Total Abstinence, but we 
gather together men, and we take just as much as we 



330 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

can get from each man. Here is one brother who says, 
"I will give a hundred thousand dollars to found a 
coffee-house." God bless him ! We will take it. An- 
other says, " I don't recognize the need of my pledging 
Total Abstinence, but I will put my boys in the Knights 
of Temperance.' ' God be thanked ! We will have the 
boys. Anothor says, " I will help the Sunday-school." 
We are glad of that. Among ministers there are many 
who will not preach a Temperance sermon. We have 
fixed that in the Episcopal Church by fixing a Temper- 
ance Sunday, and we have got to preach a Temperance 
sermon. Every man must take some stand, and if he 
doesn't take the right stand, I hope the Woman's Chris- 
tian Temperance Union will get after him, and the next 
year he will preach Prohibition. 

Now I want you to understand about the Church Tem- 
perance Society. I wish all the churches had them. The 
Knights of Temperance are limited to the Episcopal 
Church. We don't want any Methodists in the organi- 
zation. Why ? Because we think we have all we can 
do to attend to our own boys. We are trying to attend 
to our own, as every mother should attend to her own 
children. The Roman Catholics have started their or- 
ganization, and we think every church should have some 
way of attending to its own boys. And when we get 
all these particular gardens of the Lord attended, I think 
somehow or other we will be all right. 

Last night there was a telegram by the Associated 
Press sent to the Brooklyn Times, and as I read it going 
over the ferry from this meeting, I read that General 
Neal Dow spoke very strongly in favor of High License, 
and Mr. Graham spoke very absolutely for Prohibition. 
Now you see things are getting decidedly mixed. There 
are two classes of High License people, one of whom are 
always our friends, and the others I haven't much hope 



THUIiSDAY EVENING. 331 

of. If you get a High License man who is a Total Ab- 
stainer, as Brother Graham is, I know what he will be- 
come by and by. But when you get a High License man 
who drinks, we may well pray for him. 

I have just come from the Rutgers Commencement — 
the Rutgers Female College ; and there were gathered a 
great group of young ladies, dressed in white, singing 
the Jubilate Deo. I come down here and see a lot of 
people not in their Sunday clothes, many of them wear- 
ing black. It looks to me as if they were in their work- 
ing clothes. These girl graduates were rejoicing that 
they had graduated. We have not graduated yet. We 
are in the midst of the work, but as I heard the Jubilate 
Deo, I thought, " We will be singing the Jubilate, we 
will be wearing the white, we will be feeling through 
and through that the battle is won, by and by." 

As I went out of here a while ago, a friend said to me, 
" I won't stay another minute. Why, there is one of 
those crank, short-haired women speaking." Perhaps 
she was a crank. You know what that means. You 
remember the siege at Lucknow. You remember poor 
Jennie, the crank, and you remember, long before the 
other people heard the words of succor, long before they 
heard the song of victory, this crank woman, with her 
ear to the ground, heard it, and she cheered the heart of 
the soldiers in the midst of their doubt and misery. The 
Campbells were coming, and they had victory, because 
a crank woman had told them long before that they 
would have it. God be praised for the crank women 
who are leading in this movement. 

THURSDAY EVENING. 

Dr. Deems announced that General Dow, who had 
been expected to preside, could not be present. In his 



332 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

absence the Congress signified its desire that the Presi- 
dent should preside. 

Prayer was offered by Rev. Mr. Hector. 

The first address of the evening was on 

The Nebraska Amendment. 

Mrs. Mary A. Hitchcock, President of the Woman's 
Christian Temperance Union of Nebraska, spoke as 
follows : 

Brothers and Sisters : It is with pleasure that I am here 
upon this platform to-night, to speak in behalf of Ne- 
braska. But I was not aware that my name would ap- 
pear upon this programme until I reached Chicago. I 
might have made the excuse of a bad cold, or of other 
engagements, had I known that I should be called 
upon ; and so I question a little the right of this com- 
mittee to put my name upon this programme without 
letting me know that they had done so. "When I arrived 
in Chicago, a programme was handed me, and there I 
found my name. I felt a little cowardly, I must say, 
when this great convention or congress came up before 
me as you appear to me to-night, and I stand before 
you with more timidity than I would before the whole 
State of Nebraska, although it is four hundred and fifty 
miles in length and two hundred and fifty miles in width. 
So you can see how I measure up this convention. I had 
no time to make a set speech and to write it down, and 
so I shall speak to you, perhaps, in rather a disconnected 
manner, as I am not a platform speaker, or even a lec- 
turer. I simply talk to my own people. 

Nebraska is the oldest High, License State in the 
United States. We had High License first, and we have 
struggled with it for the last nine years. It was intro- 
duced into our State as a restrictive and a reformatory 
measure. It has not proved to be either. If the proyi- 



THURSDAY EVENING. 333 

sions of the law had been lived up to it would have 
been nearly Prohibition ; but they have been disregarded 
in every respect. Liquor has been sold to minors and 
to drunkards, and it has been sold on Sunday, and the 
law has been disregarded in every way. We have be- 
come tired of High License. We waDt no more of it. 
Our last Legislature had a conference with the chairman 
of the National Republican Committee, and he said to 
them, " You are losing so many men from the Republi- 
can party to the third party, that you must submit a 
Prohibitory Amendment to the people. ' ' He said one 
thing more. * ' But, ' ' said he, ' ' you must defeat it at 
the ballot." So we have before us what is called in 
Nebraska a double-header. We have two amendments 
submitted to our people, to be voted upon next Novem- 
ber. One is Prohibition and the other is License, in 
our Constitution — mandatory — "You shall license;" 
that is the wording. So we have this doable-headed 
fight. That is the condition in which Nebraska stands 
to-day. It is not only the battle-ground for our State, 
but it is the battle-ground of the United States. As this 
question goes in Nebraska, so it will affect, for weal or for 
woe, the whole interests of Prohibition or the Temper- 
ance cause. I want you to fully understand that it is 
not simply the State of Nebraska that is interested in 
this, but it is this whole Congress, this whole United 
States. Mr. Peter E. Her, the great distiller of Omaha, 
says, li If Prohibition obtains in Omaha, I shall move 
out ;" and we should be glad to say good-by to him. 
But he also says, "If License carries, I shall double 
up my capacity." What does that mean for Nebraska ? 
Now the condition of Nebraska to-day, financially, is 
this : We are laboring under greater financial depression 
at this time than we have ever been before in our history. 
We have an indebtedness of five million dollars upon our 



334 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

State, with resources of only a little over one million. 
We have another thing which is appalling, and I wish I 
could write it in figures to encompass this room, — Ne- 
braska's Drink Bill is Twenty Millions of Dollars. 

That is the condition that we are in. We are little 
prepared at this time to fight this Liquor League. It is 
the Liquor League of the whole United States, that are 
putting their money into this amendment fight. They 
are thoroughly organized*. I was told but a few days 
ago that there were lour million five hundred thousand 
dollars on call to be used to fight Prohibition in Ne- 
braska. The liquor power realize that if they lose Ne- 
braska they have lost a great battle. They realize that 
upon the north we have the Dakotas, upon the south 
Kansas, and upon our east Iowa ; and we shall have a 
large Prohibition territory in there if we can carry Pro- 
hibition. And so, if it is lost to the liquor power, it is 
a great loss to them, and the backbone of the liquor 
power is broken. 

The question has been asked me a good many times 
since I have come to this Congress, l ' How will this Orig- 
inal Package business affect Prohibition in Nebraska ? 
How will it affect your campaign J" and I received a let- 
ter from a good sister whom I have never met, from one 
of the Eastern States, and she says, u Have you become 
discouraged and given up your campaign in Nebraska 
because of the decision with regard to ' original pack- 
ages I V- As soon as I could write the words, I said this, 
" Faint, yet pursuing. We have not gi^en up our cam- 
paign, and w T e do not intend to." It is difficult at this 
time to tell how this u original package" business will 
affect our campaign. We scarcely can tell. The people 
seem to think, a great many of them, that if we can't 
have Prohibition, if we have got to have liquor come 
into our State in " original packages," w T e may as well 



THURSDAY EVENING. 335 

have the License fee to help to run our schools ; for 
that is what we do with our License money — put it into 
our public schools. Shame be it to us that that is the 
case ! So it is very difficult to tell just what the result 
will be. Before this decision it seemed to me that it was 
borne in upon every breeze that we should carry the 
State for Prohibition. Since that time there has been, 
perhaps, a little feeling of depression among our people 
with regard to this matter. We are hoping, we are pray- 
ing, for relief in this direction from Congress. 

We have but two large cities in our State, so that we 
have a good deal in our favor in that regard. We have 
about fifteen cities in our State which number from ten 
to fifteen thousand. We are doing a great deal of work 
along these lines. Our towns are being visited and thor- 
oughly canvassed. But what we want is rural work, 
work in our schoolhouses, work in the rural districts ; 
a calling together of our people so that they shall become 
instructed in this matter, so that they shall outvote the 
element which we have in our large cities. A short time 
ago, there were riding upon the train two politicians, 
and they were talking in this wise. They said, " It 
looks as though Prohibition was going to carry in our 
State. We don't desire that it should." And so they 
began to lay their plans as to what they should do to 
prevent it. They said, u We will run in two thousand 
voters into Omaha. We will get them to sleep at the 
livery stables and board at cheap boarding houses, and 
we will keep them there until after the election' ' — to 
vote against what ? To vote against the wishes of the 
best people of our State, to fasten upon us, to put into 
our laws, a law which shall become a snare and a curse 
and a delusion to our people ; to vote against the best 
wishes of the mothers of our land, of the fathers of our 
land, of the wives and the daughters. If we could have 



336 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

had municipal suffrage in Nebraska at this time, there 
would have been no doubt as to the result of the election. 
We had before our Legislature, just before this Amend- 
ment came up, a bill for municipal suffrage, and we had 
enough of our legislators working for the bill, to have 
carried it through both houses. But when this Amend- 
ment came up before the people, in accordance with the 
instruction which was sent to them by the Chairman of 
the National Committee, they said, "If we want to 
defeat Prohibition in Nebraska, we must defeat the 
suffrage bill ; n and so it was defeated. Our women are 
exceedingly anxious, and are doing everything that 
lies in their power to help carry on this work. "We 
have our organizations. We have our party organized 
for Amendment work. We have the non-partisan or- 
ganizations for Amendment work, we have the Good 
Templars, and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. 
And I want to say to you, my friends, that we are work- 
ing in perfect harmony. It was my pleasure to sit, but 
a few days ago, in a joint committee from these different 
societies, helping to plan this work and to carry it forward. 
We work on our own lines, we pay our own speakers, 
but we work in perfect harmony, for we are working for 
one and the same thing. 

Now what we need in Nebraska more than anything 
else is money to carry on our work. With four million 
and a half of dollars from this organized liquor party, 
we have to fight it, as you might say, with the Nebraska 
cent. The liquor party is so thoroughly organized that 
they are sending literature out into our land ; they are 
scattering it all over our State. In twenty-four hours' 
time that little Farm Herald, which did so much damage 
in Pennsylvania, was dropped into every post-office in 
our State. And so they are thoroughly organized. And 
what we need is money. We need your sympathy and 



THURSDAY EVENING. 337 

we need your prayers to help us to carry on this work. 
While I do not come to you begging for money for my 
own State, I come to you asking that you should help 
us because it is a national issue. So I was glad to-day, 
when I heard my brother speak of the wants of Nebraska. 
I have heard but little said concerning Nebraska here in 
this Congress. But it is the thought that lies near my 
heart. It should lie near the heart of every one of you, 
because of the great interests which cluster around this 
Amendment, whether it shall carry or whether it shall 
not. If we put License in our Constitution, it does 
away with Local Option, it does away with High Li- 
cense, and that is one of the amendments which is before 
us. We have some counties in our State where they 
have no saloons, but since the decision of the Supreme 
Court with regard to u original packages," they have 
opened their u original package depots" in those coun- 
ties. And while I come before you to plead for your 
prayers and for your sympathy and for your help for Ne- 
braska, I believe that we shall carry the State for Pro- 
hibition, because I believe in the manhood of my State, 
I believe in the Christian sympathy of the people of the 
United States. I believe that there is a bond of sympa- 
thy running through this people, which will reach over 
to us and help us in the time of our dire extremity. So 
I ask your prayers, I ask your sympathy, I ask your help 
in any way you can give it to Nebraska, so that you will 
help us in our Amendment work. 

The President : Now let us do something. I call upon 
Rev. C. H. Mead, of Hornellsville,. N. Y., to tell us what 
to do. 

Mr. Mead said : 

I told some of the brethren that this Congress was 
bound to be a success, and that we should have the best 
speeches of all on the last evening, if I had to make one 



338 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

myself ; and here I am. I have been looking tip at this 
map of our country while this lady has been speaking, and 
I want to say to you that if we put Prohibition into the 
fundamental law of the State of Nebraska you know 
what will happen. We shall have North and South Da- 
kota above her, Iowa on the right side of her, Kansas 
beneath, and she in the middle. You know what you 
will have then ? A stretch of territory with Prohibition in 
the fundamental law — a stretch of territory large enough 
to take in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, France, 
Switzerland, Spain, Denmark, and a part of Sweden and 
Norway. That makes a tremendous stretch of territory, 
don't it ? If we get Prohibition there, we shall have 
a stretch of territory that will take in Maine, New Hamp- 
shire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecti- 
cut, New York and Pennsylvania, and little New Jersey 
thrown in. Do you know what that means out there ? 
Do you know what it means for the nation ? Do you 
know what it means for God and humanity ? Do you 
know what it means along all the lines ? Do you know 
it will send a thrill of joy into many a home all over this 
nation and throughout the Christian world, if the news 
goes that Nebraska has swept the Liquor Traffic out of 
sight ? Is she going to do it ? There is a paper pub- 
lished in New York City, called the World. Perhaps you 
country folks never have heard of it. But the New York 
World has quite a large circulation, in several families. 
In the New York World, a few days ago, there was a 
letter from a corespondent in Nebraska, giving the po- 
litical situation in that State, and among other things 
the correspondent said, " Prohibition also will play an 
important part in the campaign. Already the speakers 
are out stumping ' for God and home and native land ' n 
(Glory to God I), u while theantis are forming their rein- 
forcements and preparing to wage a vigorous warfare, 



THURSDAY EVENING. 339 

especially through the newspapers. This fight will 
be a close one, with the chances in favor of the Prohibi- 
tion Amendment carrying." Well, when you get such 
an admission as that from the devil's side, it means a 
good deal. We have got fellows all along the line that 
will say, " Prohibition don't prohibit ; it never has pro- 
hibited, all the way from Sinai to Cincinnati." But it 
does prohibit. Now we want to see Nebraska carry the 
Amendment. You have rightly said, madam, that this 
is not the fight of Nebraska, but it is the fight of the 
whole nation. The whole guns of the Liquor Traffic are 
being turned against the home, in that State. Twenty 
thousand dollars was sent from one association alone, in 
the city of Philadelphia, within the last three weeks, to 
the liquor men in Nebraska. Over one hundred thousand 
dollars was given by the National organization. Before 
they get through they will have over five hundred thou- 
sand dollars, and probably double that amount, on the 
liquor side. A lady from Nebraska said to me a few 
days ago, " If we can have one dollar to spend where the 
liquor men have a hundred, we can carry the State." 
What does that mean ? It means that God has laid an 
obligation upon every man that loves God and home 
and native land. You that believe the Liquor Traffic 
ought to be suppressed, put up your hands. (Numer- 
ous hands were raised.) Now put them down, down 
in your pockets, and pull oat your pocketbooks. Now 
we want to send out of this Temperance Congress our 
sympathy in practical form, to help Nebraska. Three 
gentlemen sat. here to-day, from Philadelphia. I am sor- 
ry they had to go away to their homes. They were 
ready to give a hundred dollars apiece for Nebraska. 

Now, gentlemen, there are a good many men here who 
are tremendously interested and tremendously in earnest 
that Nebraska shall stop the Liquor Traffic. I hope they 



340 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONOxRESS. 

will come to the front now. Are there not a dozen men 
here who would be willing to give a hundred dollars 
apiece ? 

Appeals for contributions were made by Mr. Mead 
and Mr. John Lloyd Thomas, under whose leadership 
pledges and cash were received aggregating $998.75. 
The amount received in all thus far is $973.75, as shown 
by the following list of 

Contributors : 
John S. Huyler $100.00 

The Voice . . , 100.00 

Elizabeth S. Toby 25.00 

Judge H. B. Moulton. 25.00 

" " for W. C. T. U. of D. C. . 25.00 

Horace Waters , 25.00 

Henry B. Metcalf 25.00 

W. C. T. U. of Massachusetts, by MissE. S. Toby 25.00 

W. C. T. U. of Massachusetts (later) 14.00 

W. C. T. U. of Rhode Island, by W. T. Wardwell.. 25.00 

Miss E. S. Toby, for a friend 25.00 

Mr. N. B. Powers 25.00 

Mrs. Mary T. Lathrap 25.00 

Shotwell Powell. 25.00 

W. C. T. U. of Closter, N. J 10.00 

L. A. Maynard 10.00 

W. J. Dingledine 10.00 

Thomas S. Stewart 10.00 

Mrs. Thomas S. Stewart 10.00 

M. W. Baldwin 10.00 

Prohibition Club of Lansingburg, N. Y 10.00 

W. C. T. U., No. 14, of New York City 10.00 

Dr. I. K. Funk 10.00 

W. C. T. U. of Union Hill, N. J 10.00 

W. C. T. U., of Middletown, Del 10.00 

" " " " (later) 11.00 



a u u 



THURSDAY EVEKIKG. 341 

Rev. A. J. Church $10.00 

Rev. J. H. James 10.00 

Miss Ann Edwards 10.00 

Prohibition Club, Caldwell, N. J . 10.00 

W. C. T. U. of Connecticut 10.00 

Cash, New York 10.00 

George C. Hall 10.00 

S. A. Kean 10.00 

Horace "Waters, for Maine 5. 00 

" " " Texas 5.00 

" " " California 5.00 

New Hampshire 5.00 

Oregon 5.00 

Trinity Baptist Church 5. 00 

Dr. C. H. Payne, for Ohio 5.00 

Charity Lodge of East Hampton, N. Y 5.00 

Rahway Reform Club 5.00 

Mr. H. Osborn 5.00 

Mrs. H. S. Berry 5.00 

Jere T. Brooks 5.00 

Golden Cross 5.00 

J. A. Helvin 5.00 

W. C. T. U. of Rahway, N. J 5.00 

T. R. Simonton 5.00 

W. J. Peck 5.00 

Rev. J. H. Hector ; 5.00 

Judge H. B. Moulton, for Vermont 5.00 

F. E. Grimshaw 5.00 

W. B. Hill 5.00 

John T. Walsh 5.00 

Rev. Dr. C. F. Deems, for North Carolina 5.00 

Rev. A. P. Eckman 2.00 

N. B. Powers 2.00 

Julia A. Wilson 2.00 

Caleb Ford 1.00 



342 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS 

Henry A. Tuttle $1. 00 

Cash 1.00 

Cash . . 1 .00 

Cash. 25 

Morningside W. C. T. XL, per Mrs. E. Campbell. 5.00 

Morningside W. C. T. U. (later). 5.00 

Collection 128.50 

Cinnaminson Prohibition Club 10.00 

Earl Lee 5.00 

Kev. F. N. Lynch. 8 9 5.00 



$973.75 

This amount has been duly forwarded to Nebraska, 
together with $65.97 additional, the latter sum being 
the surplus received for expenses of the Congress beyond 
the amount of the expenses. 

In the course of the canvass, Professor A. K. Cornwall 
said : 

Mr, President : If this audience could only just see it, 
you can take Nebraska. It is all within your grasp here 
to-night. We have only got to carry out the programme 
that is begun. If we take Nebraska, I want to tell you 
now, liquor will never be set up again in that North- 
western Territory. 

A Delegate : Gentlemen, I am pastor of a Presbyterian 
church in Nebraska, and at the head of a Non-Partisan 
League. I have not come here to collect money from 
you. I have come fifteen hundred miles, partly to learn 
from you what we can best do in our own State. I, 
however, desire at this time to render hearty thanks for 
my whole State for what you have done so far for us in 
money matters, and I ask you, my dear Christian friends, 
that you pray for us in this contest — for it is a mighty 
one — that I have undertaken to deal with in a small 
community of live hundred inhabitants. 



THUKSDAY EVEKIHG. 343 

Joseph Cook, of Boston, then delivered an address 
entitled 

The Appeal to Philip Sober. 

He said : 

Money makes the mare go, and also the nightmare. 
This vast region of Nebraska we fought over once in the 
contest with slavery. There is more money behind the 
Liquor Traffic than was ever behind slavery. It is fair 
to say that slavery never whipped or burned or starved 
to death as many human beings in any one year as the 
Liquor Traffic now kills with every circuit of the seasons 
in this foremost Christian Eepublic of all times. Sla- 
very never injured the Republic, in any one year before 
the Civil War, as much as the Liquor Traffic injures it 
now every year. It is because there is money in it that 
the Liquor Traffic conspires, combines, and may ulti- 
mately fight for what it calls its rights. I hope we can 
put down the saloon by use of the weapons of the school, 
the church, the press, the pulpit, the platform, and 
politics. I am certain we shall need much money. I 
fear we may ultimately need the musket. Agitation and 
controversies now are far better than war taxes by and 
by. You may come to barricade riots yet, as you have 
in several of the great cities. When the path to polit- 
ical preferment leads through the gin-mill, free govern- 
ment is a farce, and its future is likely to be a tragedy. 

A man lives but once. Why should he live like a 
dunce ? Let us, on this topic of High License, think, 
and not wink. The secret forces that are massed against 
us deserve to be discussed here, if I am to speak of Phil- 
ip Sober in contrast with Philip Drunk. 

Do clubmen hold the club over any preachers ? There 
are multitudes in our clubs, in our cities, who are not 
Total Abstainers. Some of these men are church-mem- 
bers, some are wealthy contributors to churches, and 



344 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

many silent lips in the pulpit are to be explained by se- 
cret influences. There is vast significance in the secret 
conspiracies of men of very moderate opinions on the 
Temperance cause— an understanding among men of the 
world, strictly so called, that High License must be de- 
fended, that Prohibition must be put down. I appeal 
from Philip Drunk, with these false views, to Philip 
Sober. I call politics, I call mere society, however proud 
it may be of its privileges, if it is merely by wealth, 
Philip Drunk. I call the Church, in its best estate, 
Philip Sober. Now let me contrast these two states of 
civilization — the State on one side, with the secret in- 
fluences of merely secular life ; on the other, the Church 
in its best estate. Look at my hand, and let it be an 
object lesson concerning the position of mere politics and 
society in this country. 

We are 65,000,000 of people, ruled by 13,000,000 of 
voters. About three million of our voters fail to appear 
at the polls in Presidential contests. We are governed 
by some ten millions who actually cast ballots in Presi- 
dential elections. I lift up my hand and let Hve fingers 
represent the ten millions. Two millions of them are 
illiterates. In a closely contested election, the mere 
illiterates would decide the case. In a narrow margin, 
you might have the result achieved by the votes that fail 
to be cast by those who stay at home, or by those who 
are so far illiterate that they cannot read or write, or, if 
they can write, cannot read, or if they can read, cannot 
write. I shut that finger to represent the illiterate por- 
tion of our suffrage. 

Then here is a portion that represents the semi-illiter- 
ate, 2,000,000 more. I shut that finger to represent the 
bulk of foreign immigration and of the semi-illiterate. 
Then what remains ? Here is the great Satanic thumb 
of the whiskey ring and its allies, and in the great cities 



THURSDAY EVENING. 345 

the policy of the whiskey ring is notoriously to govern 
both political parties. It clasps itself over those two 
smaller fingers, and there you have what I call the com- 
mencement of the grip of rum on the throat of the Re- 
public. That single grip is what makes the throat of 
every great municipality in the land wheeze to-day. 
The great whiskey rings and their allies know very well 
that under High License the fees must be gathered from 
the victims. High License is an appeal to the cupidity 
of taxpayers. But one of my objections to High License 
is that it causes the Liquor Traffic to lock hands in the 
most scandalous, infamous way, with the brothel and the 
gambling den. The other night, in Philadelphia, going 
home from the Academy of Music, I passed a building 
eight stories high, lighted to the top. Leaning on the 
arm of the Chairman, I said, " What is in those lower sto- 
ries V * " A gilded saloon. " " What is in the next story 
above?" u A gambling hell." " What is at the top of 
the building ?" " You would better not ask." 

Herrick Johnson, of Chicago (whom may God bless !) 
deserves to be remembered a thousand years for a single 
epigram, ' l Low License asks for your son ; High License 
for your daughter also." 

That thumb clasping itself over those fingers, what re- 
mains ? The open palm. Here are two great parties, the 
Democrats and the Republicans. It is supposed that 
politicians love majorities. How can these parties, so 
closely balanced, get majorities against each other, ex- 
cept by bending down and currying favor with that 
thumb? There are your great historic parties. And I 
mean to say nothing to offend any man's political sympa- 
thies. I have been a good sound Anti-saloon Republi- 
can. I now call myself independent in politics. But 
your parties, with close margins between them, tied, 
have assistance from the whiskey foe and its allies, and 



346 KATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

are more afraid of the whiskey vote than of the Chris- 
tian vote, and that is the most enormous political threat 
in the future of the Republic. The Democratic party 
has done wonders in the Southern States. In a number 
of States Local Option has been well established. The 
respectability of the Southern States is in the Democratic 
party. Here in the North the Democratic party has 
done much in the Great Commonwealth. But the Dem- 
ocratic party, as a whole, is under that thumb. And the 
Republican party, which is a national organization, is 
naturally in favor of ''judicious measures'* for the good 
of the majority, and is not under the thumb nor over it, 
but is both under and over. When that thumb clasps 
both those fingers, you will have the grip of rum on the 
throat of this Republic. 

Now I am an American of seven generations, and 
proud of my lineage. But I must say, these things ap- 
pear to me to be facts to be contemplated on our knees, 
and with humiliation. What is the remedy ? 

Here is the other hand of civilization — the Church. 
Here are your five great Protestant denominations — Con- 
gregationalists, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, and 
Episcopalians. I have been studying the various move- 
ments of thought in this Congress, to ascertain what one 
regiment of leading opinions is the strongest. I believe 
I find it in the great fact that a majority of our evangel- 
ical fingers shut one way on this Temperance cause. 
They close upon one palm ; that is to say, the immense 
majority of the Protestant Christians of the United 
States are agreed that a rumseller ought not to be ad- 
mitted to church membership. 

Now I want to use that fact, the combination of the 
Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist churches in that 
position. Those churches all said immediately, with- 
out pausing for unnecessary qualification, which is well 



THUKSDAY EVEK1KG. 347 

understood here, they have all taken that attitude — the 
Presbyterians officially, the Methodists officially, the 
Baptists in a great measure, in their independent 
churches. The Baptists act as individual communities 
in their churches. Now I maintain that whoever will 
stand by those three fingers — I will say four fingers — that 
all shut toward one palm, will have a force that can un- 
lock this terrific grip ; and under heaven and among men 
I see no way of unlocking that position of the left hand 
except by the grip of the right hand. 

Some of you know that I have occupied an indepen- 
dent platform for a number of years, and that I am in the 
pay of no party, clique, or clan, but am a friend of all 
these evangelical denominations, proud of them all, anx- 
ious to serve them all. My solemn conviction is that in 
the Church, as Philip Sober, is to be found the only remedy 
for the giddiness of State and of society in this matter of 
Temperance — that is, for the vagaries of Philip Drunk. 
And I appeal from the State to the Church. I lay down 
this as an indisputable fact, from current history, that 
rum-selling as a business is so mischievous that whoever 
practises it is now judged unworthy to be admitted to 
the average Protestant church membership. If we could 
only lift the Koman Catholic Church to the level of 
Protestantism in this matter, we would soon disentangle 
every thread of that infernal coil that fastens on the 
State. There are distinguished Catholic prelates who 
believe as strongly as I do in the duty of Total Absti- 
nence. There are distinguished prelates in the Roman 
Catholic Church who assert that it is the duty of the 
Church to drive all rumsellers from the Communion. 
But whoever reads the names on the signboards of the 
liquor shops from sea to sea as often as I do would be 
convinced that rum-selling is largely patronized by those 
who come from the other side of the sea, and very many 



348 ■ HATIOSTAL TEMIEKAISrCE COXGKESS. 

of those are in the Catholic Church. I know that the 
most infernal of all American scoundrels is likely to be a 
native-born American, like Brigham Young, or some of 
those who have dominated in this city from time to time. 
But the cause would be immensely influenced if you 
could only bring up the Eoman Catholic Church to the 
level of Protestantism in this position, that rum-selling is 
so mischievous that the rumseller cannot be admitted to 
church membership. 

Now to secure unity here, let me walk around that 
great boulder, that indisputable Temperance fact in his- 
tory, and look at the four sides of it. I make four prop- 
ositions : first, any business which justly excludes a 
man from church membership cannot, as is evident, be 
consistently legalized by Christian votes. Secondly, any 
business which justly excludes a man from church mem- 
bership cannot be legalized without sin. Thirdly, any 
business which justly excludes a man from church mem- 
bership ought not to be legalized by a Christian state. 
Lastly, any business which justly excludes a man from 
church membership cannot be legalized by a free state, 
depending on the votes of a free church, unless by the 
disloyalty of Christians to their principles. Any political 
party which proposes to legalize a business which justly 
excludes a man from church membership cannot be con- 
sistently supported by Christian votes. So I appeal to 
Philip Sober to rectify the vagaries of Philip Drunk. 
Pardon me if I use time enough to read a war song for 
the conflict. I have spoken of the value of education in 
elementary schools on the dangers of intemperance. No 
one can have been more profoundly moved than I was 
this afternoon by the address of that lady who has 
achieved the impossible — Mrs. Hunt, whose name is 
sure to sparkle as a jewel on the extended forefinger of 
history in time to come. No one can have been more 



THURSDAY EVENING. 319 

deeply moved than I was by ex-President McCosh's in- 
junction to us to carry on this instruction in Sunday- 
schools as well as other schools. But while I believe in 
educating those who are tempted, I believe also in sweep- 
ing away the webs into which the flies fall. 

Mr. Cook then read the verses " Webs and Flies," 
which will be found on page 124. 

No Sectionalism in the Temperance Work. 

•Upon this subject, General Green Clay Smith, of Ken- 
tucky, then delivered an address, as follows : 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : The subject I 
am to discuss is not the least in importance, though it 
stands last on the programme and comes at this late hour. 

I have asked myself, " Why should there be any sec- 
tionalism in this matter, or how could there be V The 
traffic is alike in its effects upon men and business every- 
where ; and we of the South are as sensitive to its touch 
and hurtful influences as you can possibly be in your re- 
spective sections. It kills our people just as easily as it 
kills yours ; it ruins our business just as surely as it 
ruins yours ; it fills our penitentiaries, jails, asylums, 
and almshouses just as full as it does yours ; it makes 
orphans and widows among us just as it does with you ; 
it produces lamentation and woe in our beautiful South- 
land just as it does in your green mountains and mag- 
nificent cities. 

In the closing of the twenty-five years last past, we 
are not the distant and unknown prejudiced people we 
were before the war. Our people by thousands have 
settled and entered into business with your people. The 
Northmen have gone South, invested their money, and 
become part and parcel of the South. Our children have 
intermarried — slavery no longer divides us ; but a com- 
mon interest unites us, a common destiny awaits us, one 



350 " NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

flag leads us, one Constitution binds us, and one great 
Union holds us. This question can never produce sec- 
tionalism of itself. It is a common enemy, and we are 
willing to unite with you, anybody and everybody to 
drive it from our land. 

But, Mr. President, I fear there are many good men 
and women who in their zeal for reform are pushing too 
many other matters on the platform with this, that will 
clog it and weigh it down and prevent its real success 
and triumph. 

Is this not the great question before the American people 
to-day ? Where is there another like it ? However im- 
portant any of the others may be — and I would not lessen 
a proper consideration of them — this rises up higher and 
higher still above them all, with its colossal weights of 
taxation, crime, and infamy grinding the people into the 
dust, threatening the liberty of the masses and the re- 
ligion of the soul. Why should we press other issues to 
the front or alongside of this, when this demands and 
requires the best efforts of the mind, soul, and body of 
all men ? I have no faith in a policy that presses other 
issues of less magnitude upon a plane with this, where 
there is so much of life and liberty and property and 
happiness involved. Why divide our forces, that we 
may be attacked in detail by greater odds and be defeated 
every time ? The people are being educated more rapidly 
along this line than we are aware of ; their sympathies 
and judgments are with us very largely, as the votes of 
Texas, Michigan, Pennsylvania, the two Dakotas, Iowa, 
Kansas, Maine, and thousands of localities verify. If prej- 
udice and sectionalism spring up and lessen our strength 
by dividing our vote, it is not because the mind and feel- 
ing have changed on this subject, but because we have 
tied to it and will not separate it from other matters 
upon which the people differ, and differ religiously and 



THURSDAY EVE^I^G. 351 

conscientiously, and in which there is not in any "wise 
so much involved. 

Mr. President and friends, we have a mighty foe to 
contend with. It is hoary with the centuries it has 
tyrannized over the human family, but never in the his- 
tory of our country was it stronger and more active than 
to-day. It is supported by men of talent, influence, and 
courage ; by men of good repute, and whose character in 
the walks of life is exemplary and honorable. It has in 
its possession and behind it millions of money — money 
from home sympathizers and millions from abroad. Its 
friends, aiders, and abettors are on the alert, never 
sleeping, bold, audacious — nay, some of them are bold 
enough to rush into the temple of the Most High and 
gather from the Word of God His commendation and 
divine approval of its rights and place among men, as 
they claim, and flaunting these garbled passages by the 
million in the faces of the more ignorant and indifferent, 
keep a solid phalanx all along the line of battle. There 
is no time for trifling, no time for other issues, no time 
for sectionalism, no time for differences of opinion as to 
methods of attack. The friends of Government, of lib- 
erty, of property, of the pursuit of happiness, must stand 
shoulder to shoulder with undaunted front, move for- 
ward on this issue, with banner lifted high, upon which 
shall be written in letters of living light, u No comyjromise, 
out unconditional abolition of this monster from all of our 
fair land. ' ' 

The prejudices and sectionalism born of the war will 
continue more or less, I fear, as long as the present dom- 
inant parties exist as they are. I honor these old parties 
for whatever of good they have done and for whatever of 
good they are trying to do. But there must be a new 
and national issue, one that touches every part of the 
country alike, and which will bring out the best thought, 



352 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

the best action and determination of the best people. I 
believe Prohibition of the Liquor Traffic in the manufac- 
ture and sale is the one and only one that will make 
inroads into the old parties and produce an organization 
that is entirely national in its objects and ends. Step 
by step this state of things is being accomplished, not by 
the friends of this movement altogether, however. Our 
friends, the enemy, sometimes give us the advantage, and 
help us forward even more than they desire or intended. 
The opinion of the Supreme Court, which has already 
been discussed, is a godsend, I believe, to help this 
movement forward. 'Twas not so intended, I dare say, 
but it is good law, and, I am sure, a correct opinion. It 
forces this question where it should be, and where, I 
trust, all of us want it — before the Nation and the law- 
making power of the Government. If the Congress de- 
cides that the States may deal with the trade and traffic 
in their own way, then they will do it, and go on in the 
good work until all of them are one in law and senti- 
ment. If it says the Nation must deal with the traffic, 
then the Nation will do it, and we will see that men are 
placed in power who will be the servants of the people, 
and not those who will keep them slaves. 

That sectionalism to-day exists because of the Negro, 
and that this is the chief cause of it, there can be no 
doubt. This, it is said by many, is the great problem of 
the age. I know it is a grave and stupendous question, 
upon the proper solution of which depends largely the 
peace and prosperity of the Government. 

Gentlemen, hear me, for I speak the words of sober- 
ness and truth : remove the saloon, destroy the. still- 
house, stop the barter and sale of intoxicating liquors, 
and you will do more to solve this problem and allay 
prejudice and kill sectionalism than by anything else 
known to men. Kemove the exciting cause of difficul- 



THURSDAY EVENING. 353 

ties, broils, and other violations of law, and you remove 
these. It is with us as it is with you. Where there are 
no liquors sold, there is a peaceful community, one of 
industry and thrift. On the other hand, where it is 
plentiful there are loungers and loafers and disturbers 
of the peace, open and gross violators of the law. The 
great majority of negroes love to drink, and adhere to 
that idea of " personal liberty,' ' and when under the in- 
fluence of liquor many of them are uncontrollable and 
dangerous. When in such a state, they do the things 
that are wrong, and to be condemned by all good men. 
Education and the Church are doing much for them, but 
the Prohibition of the Liquor Traffic would bring them 
all under the influence to a greater and more wholesome 
extent of religion and intelligence. Assist them in labor 
— there is plenty of it to do. Teach them to save their 
wages and buy homes and clothes and food and educate 
their children, and build churches. Be their friends, not 
their enemies. The Negro is a citizen of the South, he is 
a fixture there. He does not desire to leave. It is his 
home ; and we do not want him to go away. No people 
understand each other better than the whites and blacks 
of the South, and no men will do more for the Negro 
than we will. You of the North do not understand us. 
The relation between the former master and the freed- 
m an is strong and enduring, and neither class ask more 
than they are justly entitled to under the law. What 
we ask and all we ask is that both classes may be kept 
by the law and the Government from the temptations 
and evils of that dreadful element which destroys reason 
and puts in play the lower and meaner passions of the 
soul, and we will work out the mighty problem. 

If I may be permitted to criticise the position taken 
by some of these distinguished and able men who have 
preceded me, I would say, the proposition to close up 



354 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

the saloon and leave the distillery is absurd and impos- 
sible. Close the distilleries, and you necessarily close 
the saloon ; but as long as the still-house runs, liquor 
will be sold and its effects felt, whether it is by the 
saloon or some other means. The Government can sup- 
press it. It does do it, and most effectually, save for 
revenue purposes ; and if the majority who freed the 
Negro and gave him full citizenship would be the friend 
of his liberty and future good and greatness, then that 
majority would by the strong hand of the Government 
see that he is protected here, and put on a plane where 
he can become useful, respected, and honored. We are 
ready to meet you more than halfway on this issue. 
This country of ours has done marvellous things, the 
doing of w T hich has brought her to the very first position 
in the sisterhood of nations. We secured our indepen- 
dence after a long, tedious, and bloody war, marked by 
deprivations and sacrifices. We maintained our inde- 
pendence and nationality against attack from without by 
steadiness, courage, and loss of life and treasure, but not 
of principle. Then came the third and severest ordeal — 
the maintenance of nationality against conflict within. 
The world has never witnessed such a conflict, but the 
nation lives, and we of the South as well as you of the 
North rejoice to-day in our Union, where all men are 
free. There is no country like this of ours. Its climate, 
its soil, and its people are unequalled on the globe. Its 
rich cotton, rice, and sugar belt, reaching up and imper- 
ceptibly intermingling with the great cereal, horse, cattle, 
and grass belt of the Middle States, thence onward into 
the industries and varied production of New England, 
and then stretching far west to the Pacific, with a land 
filled with boundless wealth of gold and silver, and all 
over its surface a brave, patriotic, philanthropic, and 
Christian citizenship. We can stand erect in the fulness 



THURSDAY EVENING. 355 

of our manhood and thank God for such a country. And 
yet, fellow -citizens, there is one dark spot on the flag. 
Slavery was once written there, but that has been blotted 
out, and in its place liberty to all has been inscribed. 
The other remains, Distillation of the drunkard? s leverage, 
producing crime and burdens, woe and death. Blot it 
out ! blot it out ! and we shall indeed be free ! 

We are trying this great issue at the bar of conscience 
and at the ballot-box. The underlying sentiment of the 
nation is with us. If we are wise, we will rid it of all 
hindrances and superfluous weights, and gather the mighty 
reserved forces into line for quick and certain success. 
But let us not forget that the foe is an obstinate and dar- 
ing one, and will not at once down at our bidding. It 
may be that when it is discovered that the judgments 
and the ballots of the American people are about to de- 
cide against the traffic, that other and severer means will 
be resorted to by its friends to maintain their position. 
Will you be ready and sufficient for the times ? The 
conflict will not be on other issues. It will be on this. 
The enemy will not fight for other questions now agitat- 
ing the public mind, nor for any in all likelihood to 
arise; but upon this and this alone. The severity of the 
conflict will be brought on by the opposition, as it has 
been in miniature already in many places, but we must 
be prepared. When the War of Secession began, men 
of the South loved the Union, and wept when they saw 
the old flag go down ; but when their States took posi- 
tion these men followed their destiny. There were those 
in the North who deprecated war and cried " Peace !" but 
when Fort Sumter was fired upon, allied themselves 
with the friends of the Government and gave their lives 
for its preservation. So there may be differences of 
opinion now, but there is but one issue — ' ' shall the nation 
be free, shall it be sober, shall it be Christian I" If so, 



356 KATIOtfAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

let us all, North and South, East and West, come to- 
gether, bury sectionalism and prejudice, and contend for 
the right, as we see the right, and in God's name we 
shall succeed, and be as the Almighty intended, the great 
chandelier hung out in the midst of nations to bring them 
to peace, liberty, and righteousness. 

The President : A telegram informs us that Bishop 
Turner cannot be with us to-night It is late in the 
night. If you are willing to stay, I would like to have 
the Kev. Mr. Hector take just ten minutes, to speak for 
the Negro on this subject. It is not a fair call, I know. 
It is the first unfair thing I have done since I have been 
in the chair. It is an unfair call, because he is not a 
darkey, he is not a negro. He is only a colored British 
subject ; that is all. He is just exactly on the footing 
of our Brother Graham. The only difference is, he is a 
little darker shade. I don't think he ever was in the 
South in his life, but his father and mother were, and 
the blood is in him, and I think that if you will listen to 
him a few minutes, you can wait. 

Bev. J. H. Hector spoke as follows : 

I am very glad to be here to night. I am glad that 
they left me last, so that the Scripture is on my side — 
" The last shall be first." We were the last to be called 
on when every star trembled in the firmament of your 
flag. We were the first to enter the capital of Rebeldom. 
On the eve of the battle that is before you, we are the 
last, but you can depend on us when the struggle comes 
for the balancing up, for the loosening of the fingers of 
old Philip Drunk. I will tell you why. We remember 
what you did to us. We remember, when you fought 
for eight long years of battle unparalleled on the pages 
of the history of the world, and tossed off the chains of 
British oppression ; when you broke those chains, the first 
thing you did was to take them and slam them on us., 



THUKSDAY EVEKItfG. 357 

We remember, too, that we prayed the Lord, and He 
gave us signs, one day, that we would be free, and we 
troubled God's throne until God raised up the best band 
of men that your country ever knew, called Abolitionists, 
who plead the cause of our liberty, and raised the tide of 
public sentiment so high that at last the black smoke- 
cloud of the Nation's flame gathered ; then brave men 
from the North met brave men from the South. You 
ask me if I was down South. I have eight flesh wounds 
on my body, and carry three pieces of lead. Oh, yes, I 
was there ! And God came along, after five years, and 
rolled back the black smoke-cloud of war ; Peace, with 
her long white pinions, shaded this Republic, and then 
four and a half millions of us, with our chains all broken, 
walked out in the radiant sunbeams of liberty, never 
again to be slaves, thank God ! 

To-day the conflict that is before you is a parallel to 
the one you have just wiped out. You enslaved us be- 
cause you loved gold better than you did right, and God 
has given black people their freedom. "We are not going 
to use the new-bought freedom that God has given us 
to take our ballots and put the chains on the limbs of the 
drunkard's wife and the drunkard's children and the 
broken-hearted American mothers of this Republic, 
Thus far, in the South, where the contests have been 
close, where black men were in the majority in the wards 
(I speak from experience), the black men in the South 
have voted aright, and thus balanced up what I say by 
the power of their right arm, invested in the Govern- 
ment. And we are here, as the general said, to stay, and 
we are growing mighty fast, and what you want to do is 
to educate us, to pay more attention to us, to bring us up 
to the proper level of civilization, more than the Republi- 
cans and the Democrats have done. \Ye waited, you 
know, a long time. They told us what they would do, 



358 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

and we have been waiting. They said to us, when they 
broke the chains from our limbs, they would be our 
Moses, and so we waited and waited, and then we finally 
got so that by the light of education we could read, and 
we took God's Golden Word of Truth, and we read that 
Moses never got to the Promised Land. Now we are 
beginning to follow this new Joshua that has come out 
with royal colors to lead us to sobriety, education, and 
truth ; and on the rocks of the future prosperity of this 
nation the power of the black people in this nation has 
got to be felt ; and I ask you to take whiskey from us, 
because the position we occupy to-day is worse than what 
slavery gave us. You don't believe it. I will prove it 
to you in eight minutes. 

The point is this : slavery kept us sober. It was a 
criminal offence for a white man in the South to give a 
slave whiskey. "What do you want to prove, Hector ? 
I want to prove that when you gave us freedom you told 
us about personal liberty, and then we stepped out, not 
understanding the laws of physical culture and health, 
and we began to do what you do. We got razzle- 
dazzled ; and some of these old doctors fooled a lot of 
us, too. They told us that alcoholic beverages and beers 
would aid digestion, and were a sure cure for the dys- 
pepsia. I want to prove to you that slavery did for us a 
grand thing. We are to day, because of slavery and 
Prohibition, the best physically developed race in the 
country. We have better teeth, better lungs ; we can 
out-sing any other band of people, and can go out in the 
woods and make more racket to the square inch than 
any other band of people in the Republic. 

I heard a gentleman upon this platform talk about reg- 
ulating the sale of whiskey. Let me say to you, for the 
bene<fit of my race and for yours, I plead for the black 
man here to-night in your Congress — we can't change 



THURSDAY EVEKIKG. 359 

our skins ; so the Scripture says-; but I will tell you 
what you can do for the black men in this country : you 
can change the color of that old map up there, and wipe 
out that black. We would like to have you do it, for 
you of the favored race have a royal advantage over us in 
this particular, and in God's name I plead with you to- 
night, for one thing, don't try to regulate it. The men 
that favor regulation have no more logic than an old col- 
ored woman that came from Georgia to New York. She 
had never been in a house before where they had running 
water, and the lady left her in the kitchen and said, 
u Maria, you sit down here and I will come back soon 
and tell you what to do." She looked around and said 
to herself, " My, what a splendid house !" She looked 
at the little brass faucets, and she turned one of them. 
The water came. She was scared, of course. She 
rushed and got a pail and a sponge and began to sop 
up the water with the sponge and wring it out into the 
pail, and when she got the pail full she would throw it 
out of the door and then go back and begin again. The 
lady came down and said, " Maria, what is the matter V 9 
"Why," she said, " I am trying to regulate this water." 
That is the condition of every High License man in this 
country. They are running around with an old pail and 
a sponge, saying that they are going to wipe out all these 
low, miserable dens, and establish first-class places ; and 
whiskey is running all the time, right along, a steady 
stream. Your sons and your daughters can no longer 
be blighted and damned by these low, miserable dens ; 
and now, if they are going to be blighted and damned, 
it has got to be done in first-class style, and a man has 
got to pay a thousand dollars to do it ; and the whiskey 
is running all the time. May God speed the dawning 
of the day when you people of this Republic, black, 
white, blue, grizzly, yellow, green, and gray will turn 



3G0 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

the spigot and shut ofi the damning tide of rum for- 
ever ! 

The President : Now, ladies and gentlemen, we are 
bound to admit, and every good and honest man, I thiDk, 
is bound to admit, and the reporters are bound to say, that 
in this great Congress we have had the truth in black 
and white. We have had it up one side and down the 
other. I think you will admit that, after all the trouble, 
what has come has been worth it. I have just a remark 
or two to make as we close. 

One is this : I come to beg pardon for my stupidity 
to-day, when Professor Wilkinson sprung a resolution 
upon the Congress, in which I was personally concerned. 
It took me so suddenly that, after hearing my name and 
one word, I heard no more. I only knew it was exceed- 
ingly complimentary, and what I wish to beg pardon for 
is that I did not have sense at the moment to return my 
most grateful thanks, which I do now. 

Ladies and gentlemen, it has been an uncommon 
strain upon me. People don't know how much of a 
strain it is. The things I have not done are the things 
for which you ought to be grateful. More people have 
been kept from speaking than have been allowed to 
speak here during these two days ; and the one solitary 
man that has had to bear the brunt of all that has been the 
President ; and he has had to decide rapidly, as each 
case came up. And then there have been propositions 
to bring public questions into the Congress, which were 
good questions, and the propositions were on the right 
side, and personally I was strongly in favor of every- 
thing that has been refused. Now I beg you to believe 
that, for I say it from the bottom of my heart, and I say 
it truthfully ; I did not anticipate, when I allowed my- 
self to be made the Chairman of the Committee of 
Arrangements, that the great responsibility of presiding 



THURSDAY EVESTIXG. 361 

would be put upon me ; but I give you my most hearty 
thanks for the generosity, the gentleness, the kindness, 
with which you have received all the rulings of the 
Chair. 

We did not know what this was to come to. The night 
before we assembled, the Committee said, " Shall we 
have three hundred people, or thirty V ' And when I left 
my house to come up to this church yesterday morning, 
I had great misgivings. But as you poured in, and as 
the enthusiasm grew, and as these men with such strong 
convictions have come nearer and nearer together, I have 
thanked God and taken courage. 

"We have not done much, people may say. But we 
have left undone the things we ought to have left un- 
done, and let us thank God for that. 

Now some day we shall have another Congress, shall 
we not? (Cries of " Yes' 1 .) Some day we shall come 
together again. If the course had not been pursued which 
has been pursued, gentlemen, we never should have had 
such a representative body as this. There never has been 
one like it before in America. But may there be a hun- 
dred like it in the years to come, and every one superior 
to its predecessors. May your sons and my sons, your 
grandsons and my grandsons, stand up in the future Na- 
tional Temperance Congresses of this country, and may 
our great-grandsons be at the last, and say, " There is no 
need of more congresses, for the day of jubilee has come, 
and the captive is set free V 

Now, ladies and gentlemen, we close this Congress. 
We love one another better, I think, than we did before. 
We have spoken plainly on all the subjects. We have 
spoken kindly. There is just one little piece of busi- 
ness, and then I will adjourn the Congress according to 
the programme. 

Dr. Deems announced that the subscriptions for Ne- 



362 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONGRESS. 

braska had amounted to $909.44. This amount was soon 
brought up to $1000.* 

Mrs. Hitchcock expressed to ihe Congress thanks on 
behalf of Nebraska for the generous donation. 

The benediction was pronounced by Rev. Dr. Deems. 



* The amount which is here reported in round numbers will be found 
exactly stated ($998.75) on p. 343 —Ed. 



APPENDIX, 



REVIEW OF THE CONGRESS. 
By Charles F. Deems, D.D., LL.D.* 

As it fell to me to preside over the First National 
Temperance Congress, so it seems to be my duty to yield 
to requests from different quarters, and give a statement 
of the impressions made upon me as the whole affair 
appeared from my point of view. I have waited until 
the perspective might adjust itself and the work be done 
dispassionately. 

Its origin seems to have been on this wise. No ob- 
server, however superficial, has failed to notice three 
things : 1. The increasing power of the saloon, not only 
in propagating and intensifying the manifold evils of 
Intemperance, but also in balefully controlling Municipal, 
State, and National politics. 2. The increasing desire 
and determination on the part of good men to suppress 
the saloon ; and, 3. The great divergence of views among 
intelligent and conscientious men as to the best method 
to secure this most desirable result. 

There is nothing so dreadful among men as the saloon. 
It is absolutely useless and it is always injurious, ad- 
mittedly the most injurious of all human institutions. 
It is conducted always by bad men, no man of good 
character being willing to endure the thought of being 
connected with the business. And yet it survives and 



* This article was written by Dr. Deems without consulting the 
official report, and the note on page 273 was supplied by the editor of 
this volume as it was passing through the press. — [Ed.] 



364 APPENDIX. 

grows, notwithstanding the fact that every decent man 
in the United States, Catholic and Protestant, Demo- 
cratic and Republican, professes to deplore the existence 
of its malign influence. Why, then, is it not swept away 
in a year, so that no vestige could be discovered ? 
Thoughtful men have felt that the phenomenon of its 
continued existence is due to the divergence of opinion 
among its opponents as to the best method of destroying 
it. Whether this divergence can be lessened in any 
degree is a problem. 

At some one's suggestion, an informal meeting was 
called, in the month of March, 1890, of friends of Tem- 
perance to talk over the situation. The temper and the 
result of the meeting were so agreeable as to induce the 
appointment of a committee to consider the propriety of 
making a call for a National Temperance Congress. 
That committee consisted of seven persons, and I believe 
no two of them represented the same " Temperance 
view." Without consulting me they appointed me chair- 
man. Upon reflection I concluded to accept the position 
and try to do the work faithfully. " A Call for a Na- 
tional Temperance Congress" was circulated, and ob- 
tained the signatures of men and women representing all 
creeds, religious and political, and all shades of Tem- 
perance views. Among those were many of the highest 
names in America, the most able thinkers in Church and 
State, the most influential workers in politics and busi- 
ness. The call was made so broad that no Temperance 
man was excluded. It was an invitation. It was a solici- 
tation. It was as broad as this : " We ask all Loral, 
State, and National Temperance Societies (regardless of 
sex or politics), and all Churches and Sunday-schools, 
and other Associations which hate the Saloon, to send 
representatives to a National Temperance Congress, to 
be held in New York City, June 11th and 12th, 1890, in 



APPENDIX. 365 

the Broadway Tabernacle." That there might be no 
mistake, the following sentence is added : " Every per- 
son opposed to the saloon who will present himself at 
the Congress will be welcomed as a member.' ' After 
such a call, is it fair for any man who " hates the 
saloon" and who did not attend the Congress to utter 
any adverse criticism ? 

The object of the Congress is stated in the first sen- 
tence : " We, the undersigned, representing almost 
every shade of Anti-Liquor Views, believe that the time 
lias come for representative Temperance people through- 
out the country to assemble together in convention, to 
look into one another's face, to compare views frankly, 
to learn the whole ground of our agreement, and to en- 
large that ground, if possible, by candid and friendly 
discussion." Before accepting the chairmanship of the 
Committee I satisfied myself thoroughly, and am still 
satisfied, that the Congress was not secretly intended to 
turn the grindstone to sharpen any man's axe, that no 
party politics were to be promoted by the movement, 
and that nothing was to be done beyond that which was 
stated in the call ; so, when a programme was made out 
the topics w T ere distributed among the religious, moral, 
social, and legislative departments of the Temperance 
question. 

It may be important, as a matter of history, to copy 
from the programme the topics in the order in which 
they were actually discussed. 1. u Is State and National 
Prohibition Desirable and Feasible?" 2. "Alcohol a 
Poison, never to be used for Beverage Purposes." 3. 
u The Line on which all Enemies of the Saloon may 
unitedly do Battle, whether they be Believers in Restric- 
tive Measures or in Radical Prohibition." 4. " How 
may the Churches aid most Effectively in the Destruction 
of the Liquor Traffic?" 5. "The Coffee House and 



366 APPENDIX. 

other Substitutes for the Saloon." 6. " The Bearing on 
the Temperance Reform of the Unbroken Package De- 
cision of the Supreme Court." 7. "Is High License to 
be Regarded as a Remedy?" 8. "Should there be a 
Political Party whose Dominant Idea is the Prohibition 
of the Liquor Traffic ?" 9. " The Relation between the 
Temperance Reform and Improved Dwellings." 10. 
" To what Causes is to be attributed the Failure of the 
Prohibition Amendments in the late Contests in Massa- 
chusetts, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island ?" 11. " The 
Attitude of Labor Men toward the Liquor Traffic." 12. 
u The Systematic Prosecution of the Total Abstinence 
Work Essential to the Overthrow of the Liquor Power." 
13. "Temperance "Work among the Young." 14. 
"The Nebraska Amendment." 15. "The Appeal to 
Philip Sober." 16. "No Sectionalism in the Temper- 
ance Work." Certainly this must be admitted to be a 
broad gauge. 

Then look at the men assigned the topics. A majority 
of them were opposed to radical Prohibition and to what 
is known as "the third party." Certainly it was no 
mean Congress which had among its speakers Rev. Drs. 
Huntington, Funk, Kynett, Buckley, Miner, Howard 
Crosby, Carroll, ex-Presidents McCosh and John Bascom, 
Joseph Cook, General Nettleton, General Wager Swayne, 
General Neal Dow, General Palmer, General Green Clay 
Smith, and Messrs. Robert Graham, Joshua L. Bailey, 
S. H. Hilliard, L. A. Maynard, R. Fulton Cutting, H. H. 
Faxon, Henry B. Metcalf, Samuel Gompers, T. B. Wake- 
man, Albert Griffin, Judges Bonney, of Chicago, and 
Arnoux, of New York, Hon. Walter B. Hill, of Georgia, 
and the learned scientist, Dr. N. S. Davis, of Chicago. 
All these were on the programme, and with the excep- 
tion of two or three, who sent their papers, were all 
present and spoke. 



APPENDIX. 3G7 

There were four rules of order on the programme, as 
follows : 

1. Fifteen minutes to be allotted to each opening 
address. 2. The ' Talks ' following the opening of each 
discussion to be limited to five minutes. 3. The Chair 
is to ' call time ' promptly. 4. The Congress shall be 
wholly for conference ; hence all resolutions are to be 
ruled out of order." 

The size of the Congress was surprising. The first 
session opened on Wednesday morning, June 11th, at 
9.30. It is to be remembered that every man came at 
his own cost, and that the call had been issued only a 
few weeks before. At the opening of the first session, 
nearly the whole of the ground floor of the Tabernacle 
was occupied, and there were some in the gallery. The 
crowd increased with every session and every hour, to 
the close. They came in from Maine and Alabama, from 
Georgia and Dakota, from New Jersey and California. 
Colonel Alexander S. Bacon, who is not a " third party" 
r idical Prohibitionist, but a well-known member of the 
Republican Party in Brooklyn, had been appointed to 
call the Congress to order. When he did so, the writer 
of tliis article was nominated as President of the Con- 
gress. It had been intimated to me that such nomina- 
tion would be made, and I had pondered the question of 
my duty in the premises. I knew how divergent were 
" Temperance" sentiments, how conscientious were Tem- 
perance men, and how tenaciously each section held to 
its own views of policy. I knew also that there would 
be many who would insist upon breaking through the 
rules which had been adopted, and many who would 
insist upon the Congress taking some u action." I felt 
that whoever presided over that Congress should be ob- 
stinate enough to resist wild attempts to make a stam- 
pede, and courteous enough to break a mule's neck with* 



368 APPENDIX, 

out giving offence to that interesting animal. It did not 
appear to me that I had these characteristics in any very 
conspicuous degree ; but then, somebody must discharge 
this duty, somebody must incur the probable odium, and 
as I was not prepared to name any other gentleman for 
the sacrifice, I consented to victimize myself. 

Plainly, there are advantages in seeing an assembly 
from the President's chair. If the observer be at all 
intelligent and self-possessed, he will see all around. 
Watching the assembly to know what should be done 
next, and the best way of doing it. examining the piles 
of cards and notes sent in by persons who desire to 
speak, receiving the comments made by those who are 
on the stage, he must have a clearer view of the whole 
affair than any one else. At this Congress I was not 
allowed to sleep one minute. Since its adjournment I 
have read most of the comments made by the press, and 
I now deliberately declare that if I had depended for my 
information upon the daily newspapers I should have 
had a most defective and distorted impression of the 
whole affair.* The press seemed unanimous in determin- 
ing to misrepresent the Congress, and its success was not 
small. Now, I can say this without any personal resent- 

* As a sample of the manner in which the papers differed, compare 
the following extracts : 

" Prohibitionists are in an overwhelming majority in the National 
Temperance Congress."— New York Tribune. 

" Neal Dow did not meet with much sympathy at the National Tem- 
perance Convention in New York Wednesday. He was received with 
great respect, bntitwas evident that the mass of the delegates were in 
favor of High License. Rev. Dr. Deems even restricted the venerable 
Maine apostle to a five-minute speech, and threatened to quit the chair 
when certain persons in the audience urged the infringement of the 
rule."— Boston Journal. 

" Neal Dow did not meet with much sympathy at the National Tern, 
perance Convention in New York on Wednesday. He was received 
with great respect, but it was evident that the mass of the delegate? 
were in favor of High License."— Boston Traveller. 



appexdix, 3G9 

merit, because all who wrote about the Congress were 
unanimous in praising the President. Indeed, but for 
that, I do not think I could wiite this article ; I could 
not avoid the suspicion of writing to u hit back." 

A few days after the adjournment, one of the most 
distinguished citizens of New York, a man of more than 
national reputation, congratulated me, and told me that 
New York society was congratulating me on having so 
successfully managed "that bear garden," and having 
brought it to a close without a riot. " That bear gar- 
den" ! All this gentleman's information had been de- 
rived from the newspapers and (probably) from a friend 
of his who was a member of the Congress, and who had 
been the most difficult man to keep in any reasonable 
order. " That bear garden" ! I know the House of 
Commons in England, the House of Representatives in 
this country, the General Convention of the Protestant 
Episcopal Church, the General Conference of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church, the General Assembly of the 
Presbyterian Church, and divers other bodies, and yet 

I declare that I never saw any assembly better behaved, 
more submissive to order, and more dignified than the 
First National Temperance Congress. 

There was excitement. There was life. There was 
vigorous and sometimes violent assertion. There was 
earnest and sometimes very loud protest. But of dis- 
order there was next to nothing. In my speech of ac- 
ceptance, I had pledged the Congress to stand by me in 
having the rules strictly observed, calling attention to 
those rules, one of w T hich was that the chair was to 

II call time" promptly, and u time" was fifteen minutes 
for each opening address and five minutes for each fol- 
lowing speech. Now it came to pass that the first 
speaker was Neal Dow, the veteran Prohibitionist. The 
Prohibitionists welcomed him warmly. I had told him 



370 APPENDIX. 

that I should give hiin the signal when he had but two 
minutes left. This signal was given and taken kindly. 
But who that is " full of matter," like Job's " com- 
forter," can stop short-off at the close of the first quarter 
of an hour ? General Dow was proceeding warmly with 
his speech when my bell struck, and I arose and called, 
" The next speaker is Mr. Robert Graham." " Go on, 
go on !" the assembly called vociferously, as is cus- 
tomary in the best regulated of enthusiastic crowds. 
Twice again I called, " The next speaker is Mr. Robert 
Graham." And they raised their pitch in " Go on !" 
I knew that my hour had come. Then I called out that 
that Congress had pledged itself to stand by me in keep- 
ing the rules, and men were violating their pledges by 
interrupting proceedings, and that unless immediate 
order were restored I should vacate the chair, and allow 
them to elect a President whom they could run over. 
The announcement was heartily applauded, and perfect 
order came. And the next speaker proceeded. I knew 
that if I kept order in the case of a very aged gentleman 
who was enthusiastically regarded by a 1 ;rge number of 
persons present, then younger and less conspicuous men 
could not complain. 

There was one other deviation from perfect order. 
One of the speakers — not a " third-party" Prohibitionist 
—seemed to have deliberately studied how he might 
insult a section of the Temperance men or test their 
tolerance. He coolly and repeatedly applied to them 
the most irritating epithets, such as no man or set of 
men in private or in public is expected to endure in 
silence. Strong protesting exclamations came from the 
insulted party. I allowed both, up to the point where 
the irritated crowd could bear no more, and were about 
to overwhelm the speaker. There a stop was called. I 
told the audience that the gentleman was not a volun- 



APPENDIX. 371 

teer, but an invited speaker ; that at our request he was 
telling us what some labor men thought of some other 
people, and as this Congress was called that we might 
learn views, the gentleman should be allowed to pro- 
ceed. The gentleman did proceed, he avoided unneces- 
sary exasperation, and thenceforward to the close there 
was perfect order. 

Now these are the only two instances that I can re- 
member, through the six sessions of the Congress, of de- 
parture from the most absolutely perfect order. I appeal 
to all intelligent men whether it is fair to apply dispar- 
aging epithets to such an assembly. 

The Committee of Arrangements selected topics and 
speakers, giving some time at the close of each appointed 
discussion for five-minute speeches by any member. 
The greatest difficulty of the presiding officer lay there. 
He knew few of the hundreds of persons present. The 
lule was adopted that each person who desired to speak 
should send up his card. There was a snow shower. 
The first received was the first called, and I took them 
in order, making these modifications to the rule — namely, 
that the proportion between the male and female speakers 
should be maintained ; that the different sections of the 
country should be heard from ; that, so far as I knew, 
those representing different views should be heard, so 
that all speaking should not be on one side ; and, if 
practicable, no one should speak twice. This was a 
task. It made some disappointments. It let in some 
indiscreet speakers ; but how was that to be avoided ? 

Whole passages of the most sensible speaking went 
uncommended by the press, while a few rather startling 
observations received very conspicuous and derisive and 
damnatory notice. For instance, one paper says that 
" General Neal Dow, the old man virulent, was the first 
speaker, and commenced the campaign by denouncing 



372 APPENDIX. 

as liars all who hinted at failure of Prohibition in 
Maine.' ' This is a misrepresentation, possibly founded 
on a misapprehension. General Dow did no such thing. 
He denounced no man. He would have been promptly 
called to order if he had done so. I watched him closely. 
In the midst of his speech he quoted the assertion that 
' * Prohibition had everywhere been a failure and had been 
equivalent to Free Rum." Then he took special pains to 
inform the audience, as I understood him, that he 
charged no man with intentional lying, but that an un- 
true statement had been quoted by good people through 
ignorance of the facts ; but that he might emphatically 
contradict it, he pronounced the assertion a "lie," and 
repeated that it was a " lie," and endeavored in a very 
clear, forcible, and decorous manner to sustain his 
position by showing that six months of faithful adminis- 
tration of the law had emptied the jails of five counties ; 
that in the jail of the oldest and most populous county 
of the State, at the end of four months after the passage 
of the law, there were only five inmates, three of whom 
were liquor-sellers who had been convicted of violating 
the law ; that now in three-fourths of the State the 
drink traffic was practically unknown ; that whereas 
there had been many large distilleries and breweries in 
Maine— nine in Portland — now there is not a single dis- 
tillery, nor a single brewery, anywhere in a>l the State. 

Now certainly I should not have used the word u lie," 
and perhaps it was indiscreet ; but does the manner in 
which it was used, with such careful guarding of terms, 
justify the wholesale disparagement of such an assembly ? 

Again, some one is accused of proposing to " spit on 
the Constitution and step on it." My recollection is 
that one speaker did apply to the Liquor Traffic the 
words which Horace Greeley applied to slavery, that if 
the Constitution sustained slavery, he was ready to spit 



APPENDIX. 373 

on the Constitution and step on it.* But. we Americans 
ought to be used to that. In my earliest boyhood an 
earnest New England orator made my blood boil by 
speaking of the Constitution of the United States as " a 
covenant with death and an agreement with hell," and 
► his words were repeated and reechoed until the Civil 
War, in which, to save the Union, the Constitution was 
overstepped, if not stepped upon or kicked aside. Per- 
haps the orator in our Congress was thinking of all that, 
and of the fact that nearly all our representative men 
used to ridicule any objection to the war for the Union 
raised on constitutional grounds. It was seen that the 
Union could not be preserved constitutionally. 

Then it was stated that a " varied assortment" of per- 
sons " expressed their readiness to shoulder their muskets 
and face the foe on the shortest notice." Besides Mr. 
H. Clay Bascom, above referred to, the only speakers 
who made military allusions of that kind, so far as I 
now recollect, were the Eastern orator, Joseph Cook, and 
the Southern orator, Green Clay Smith. These are all 
very gifted and excellent and distinguished gentlemen, 
and, taken together, perhaps may be designated " a 
•varied assortment" without violation of veracity, or 
syntax, or rhetoric. But is it fair to take their remarks 
out of their connection ? So far as at this distance of 



* The exact words of the speaker (Mr. H. Clay Bascom) were as fol- 
lows : 

" But, gentlemen, as was said regarding the slavery question, when 
it was declared that the Federal Government had nothing to do with it, 
and that the Constitution would be invalidated if we attempted to sup- 
press slavery in this country, Horace Greeley proposed, if that were 
true, to spit on the Constitution and trample on it. And that is what 
I propose to do with the Constitution. If it has come to a pass in this 
country that the Liquor Traffic is to interpret the Constitution in its own 
behalf, and dominate this Government, I am ready for my musket.' 1 
[See p. 209.— Ed.] 



374 APPENDIX. 

time it can be recalled, the connection was something 
like this : It is plain that the drink traffic, if not de- 
stroyed, will ruin the country ; there are only two ways 
to destroy it : by law or by arms ; if not destroyed by 
law, it will soon drive the people to desperation, and 
resort may be had to arms. If that came, I understood 
those gentlemen to say that they would take up arms 
upon the side of the broken-hearted fathers and mothers, 
upon the side of the home, upon the side of the Repub- 
lic, instead of upon the side of the murderous saloonists. 
Is there a patriot in all the land who does not sympathize 
with that sentiment ? Would you not despise one who 
did not ? And it is not to be forgotten that one of these 
gentlemen had once fought for the preservation pi the 
Union, and that all knew that the saloonists had 
already taken the musket and shot down Temperance 
men, and were ready to do so again ; and that they may 
carry it to a point where the decent portion of the com- 
munity may be compelled in sheer self-defence to take up 
arms against the most unprincipled set cf men now living 
upon the planet. Worse than the Janizaries, worse than 
the Mamelukes, the saloon-keepers deserve the fate 
which Mahmoud II. meted out to the former and Mehemet 
AH dealt to the latter. If slavery had been abolished in 
our country by law, it would not have been abolished by 
blood. Is it not kindness to warn the saloonists of what 
may be their fate if they be not saved from destruction 
by some legal abolition of their infamous traffic ? 

The "lie," the " Constitution," and the "musket" 
allusions are the only grounds found by the most vigilant 
search through the six animated sessions of the Congress 
for the disparagement of such a body of men, and it is 
seen what they are worth. 

There is another statement made which it may be w T ell 
to notice. It is of the nature of a complaint. It is that 



APPENDIX. 375 

the Prohibitionists were very largely in the majority. 
And that plainly was the case. But who is to blame for 
that ? They were invited publicly and came. Other 
Temperance men had had the very same invitation and 
did not come. So far as can be ascertained none, except 
those on the programme, were personally invited. Then, ' 
where were the High License men ? Where were the 
An'i-saloon Republicans ? Where were the Church Tem- 
perance Society men ? Where were other Temperance 
men ? On the way to the Tabernacle the first morning 
I met a gentleman in the street car accompanied by his 
colored valet, who attended to his portly portmanteau. 
It was soon ascertained that he was on his way to the 
Congress ; that he was a Prohibitionist ; that upon reach- 
ing his home in Alabama from Texas, he had seen the 
call, and immediately pushed off for New York, travel- 
ling day and night to be at the opening. Another gen- 
tleman, also a Prohibitionist, and therefore called " a 
semi-lunatic," came from Dakota, and another, described 
as " a wild stump orator," came from Nebraska, and 
each spoke five minutes in somewhat cyclonic fashion ; 
but where were the gentlemen who are neither u semi- 
lunatic" nor "wild," but who favor High License — 
where were they ? Are the men who were present to be 
blamed for the absence of those who did not chose to 
come ? Let there be some fairness ! 

Every one who knows the facts knows and admits that 
every reasonable effort was made not only to give, but 
to secure an impartial hearing to every side of the Tem- 
perance question. Then what ground is there for com- 
plaining that certain sentiments were " barely toler- 
ated" or " heard with ill-concealed impatience" ? Did 
radical Prohibitionists expect High License men to cheer 
them, or did those who denounced Piohibition look for 
plaudits from " third-party" men ? Were General Neal 



376 APPENDIX. 

Dow's feelings hurt because Mr. Robert Graham did not 
play the r61e of claqueur to him, or was Mr. Robert 
Graham thrown into the sulks because Neal Dow did not 
wear out his pa^ms in applauding him while he poured 
hot shot into Prohibition by Law ? Would it not be 
childish to expect such things from such venerable 
gentlemen ? 

But as the Congress did not M secure some common 
ground of action" for the Temperance forces, it *' did 
nothing" ! A machine or a political or a social move- 
ment must be judged by what it was intended to accom- 
plish, not by what the critic might wish it had accom- 
plished. This Congress was called together under the 
stipulation that nothing should be " done," no action 
should be taken, no resolution should be heard. This 
complaint, then, is a compliment. It proclaims that 
those who had the Congress in hand completely suc- 
ceeded in what they undertook. Nothing but candid 
and friendly discussion was intended. No man was 
repelled by the fear that some action would be taken 
which, if it did not bind him, might embarrass, if not 
compromise him. It was because of this that so many 
shades of opinion were represented. Moreover, talking 
is something. Among people accustomed to deliberative 
assemblies, there must always be a great amount of think- 
ing and talking before there can be determination. A 
Parliament is a parley-ment. Most certainly this Con- 
gress has done much to prepare the way for wise action 
among Temperance people. 

The fact that the Congress did not do what ardent 
advocates of particular theories wished it might do, goes 
far toward showing the wisdom of those who projected 
the assembly under the limitations that were fixed. No 
criticisms are severer than those written and uttered by 
" third-party" men both before and since the Congress, 



APPENDIX. 377 

nor were any gentlemen so reluctant as they to take part 
in starting the movement. But the result has been to 
present phenomena which seem to indicate that the most 
sincere and candid Temperance men, those who most 
have convictions with courage, those who arc readiest to 
devote time and money to the destruction of the drink 
traffic, are the pronounced Prohibitionists, whether they 
belong to the so-called u third party" or not. More- 
over, it was shown that the tendency of the mass of 
Temperance men is toward Prohibition, and that they 
are moving to that nucleus of crystallization with con- 
stantly accelerating rapidity. 

Among the invited speakers was Rev. Dr. Howard 
Crosby, one of the bravest and noblest of men, a man 
whose position is much misunderstood because it is ex- 
ceedingly difficult to understand, for the reason that he 
is believed to have done more against the saloon than 
any other citizen of New York, and yet he is believed 
by thousands of people to have done more against the 
cause of Temperance than any other three clergymen in 
New York. As he is my personal friend, and as I knew 
in advance what his reply would be, I put the question 
to him : ' '" Will Dr. Crosby unite with the Prohibitionists 
in urging the Legislature of New York to prohibit the 
manufacture and sale of distilled liquors ?" His answer 
rang through the great house, "I will;" and then he 
added with strong emphasis, " and I would join any one 
in utterly squelching the saloon forever." Before this, 
the accomplished Dr. Huntington, rector of Grace Church, 
New York, had proposed what he believed to be five 
efficacious methods of opposing the spread of drunken- 
ness, and among them this : " A common warfare against 
the four distilled spirits, which are answerable for most 
of the drunkenness." So here was a coming together. 

Dr. Funk, editor of The Voice, is supposed to repre- 



3 78 APPENDIX. 

sent the most advanced views of the most radica t Pro- 
hibitionists, called " third-party" men. The basis of 
agreement proposed by him was presented in two items — 
namely : 1. Abrogation of all license laws. 2. The 
immediate adoption of prohibitive, restrictive laws that 
hall say, " Any person who sells liquor on Sunday, on 
election days, after midnight, or to drunkards — or to 
minors, shall be fined or imprisoned, or both. Any per- 
son who opens a saloon in an election district against the 
written protest of a majority of the voters residing 
therein shall be fined or imprisoned, or both. Then, as 
the public mind ripens, additional laws could be enacted ; 
as, any person who sells liquor after sundown shall be 
fined or imprisoned, or both ; any person who sells 
liquor to be drunk on the premises shall be fined or 
imprisoned, or both ; any person who sells distilled 
liquors shall be fined or imprisoned, or both ; and so 
on toward absolute Prohibition."* 

If nothing else had been done, the presentation by 
such representative men of the possibilities of approach 
in action would have been worth the cost of the Con- 
gress. But much else was done. Men learned distinctly 
what others believed, and learned to respect those who 
differed from them as to the engines to be used in ex- 
tinguishing a conflagration, but who agreed with them 
that the Jive must oe put out. There was an increase made 
in the volume of Temperance agitation. There was a 
successful initiation of a series of Temperance Con- 
gresses. From what I have seen in the press and heard 
from leading citizens, I feel sure that the First National 
Temperance Congress in the United States was felicitous 
in its conception and will be beneficial in its outcome. 



* See page 60, 6q.— [Ed.] 



LIST OF DELEGATES. 



That this Congress fairly represented the masses of op- 
ponents of the saloon throughout the country is shown by 
the appended list of organizations and persons represented 
and attending its sessions. 

BANDS OF HOPE. 

Bainbridge Street M. E. Church, Philadelphia, Pa. 

Mrs. Frances E. Harper. 

Mount Vernon, N. Y. 
Eli Trott, President. 

CADETS OF TEMPERANCE. 
Grand Section of N. Y. 

John F. Rodman, Newtown, L. I. 

W. H. Doblin, 409 West Fiftieth Street, New York City. 

John B. Thompson, 309 West Twentieth Street, New 
York City. 

John Schriver, 229 Bridge Street, Brooklyn, N. Y. 

Charles E. Gildersleeve, 35 West Ninety-second Street > 
New York City. 

Dr. Henry Lossing, 157 East Thirty- seventh Street, New 
York City. 

L. H. Losee, 358 West Forty-eighth Street, New York 
City. 

James Dayton, Woodside, L. I. 



380 APPENDIX. 

Alexander Donegan, 327 West Forty-second Street, New 
York City. 

Robert L. Smith, 114 Eighth Avenue, New York City. 
John Neafie, 191 West Tenth Street, New York City. 
Peter McDonald, 1,651 Broadway, New York City. 

Mayflower Section, No. 6, Brooklyn, N. Y. 
John A. Billington, 106 Sands Street. 
Frank W. Herr, 35 Fourth Place. 
Clarence M. Whipple, Adams Street. 
William E. Davenport, 11 Garden Place. 
Albert A. Baker, 199 Fulton Street. 
James W. Stewart, 322 Jay Street. 
William Wirt Griffin, 51 Concord Street. 
William Bradley, 321 Gold Street. 
William B. Perry, 428 Gold Street. 
Robert Town send, 1 Duffield Street. 
William J. Thompson, 20 First Street. 

" Puritan,' ' No. 1, Brooklyn, N. Y. 
J. Hunter. Charles F. McWhorter. 

CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE UNION. 
Purchase, N. Y. 

George T. Burling, Pres. Mary A. Carpenter, Sec'y. 

Margaret C. Willets. Lizzie Burling. 

Jacob A. Carpenter. Phebe H. Carpenter. 

Lillie Sutton. 

CHURCHES. 

Board op Education, M. E. Church. 

Rev. C. H. Payne, D.D., Secretary, New York City. 

General Assembly op the United Presbyterian 
Church op North America. 

Rev. T. B. Turnbull. Rev. Robert Armstrong, D.D. 

Rev. J. T. McCrory. Rev. T. W. Anderson. 

D. L. Thompson. 



APPENDIX. 381 

t 

Permanent Committee on Temperance op the Pres- 
byterian Church in U. S. A. 
Rev. Joseph Turner. 

Synod of Reformed Presbyterian Church. 
(No place given.) 

J. C. K. MiUigan. Andrew Alexander. 

R. M. Sommerville. A. McNeill. 

F. M. Foster. James Warnock. 

James Kennedy. W. F. Bell. 

J. F. Carson. T. P. Stevenson. 

J. R. Thompson. J. K. McClarkin. 

J. W, F Carlisle. J. R. J. MiUigan. 
George Kennedy. 

Ashaway, R. I. — Seventh Day Baptist. 
Rev. Ira R. Cottrell. 

Belle Centre, Ohio. — Reformed Presbyterian. 
Rev. J. J. Huston. 

Brooklyn, N. Y. — Bedford Avenue Baptist. 
Matilda Hutchins. 

Brooklyn Tabernacle. 
Mrs. A. F. Garford. 

Cumberland Street Presbyterian. 

Richard Peace. Mr. Shanks. 

Mr. McNally. 

Greenwood Baptist. 

James Manson, P. C, Dukeshire. 

William Patterson. F. E. Heron. 

William Whitehead. Albert Frost, 

Joseph Johnson, 



383 APPENDIX, 

Hanson Place Methodist Episcopal. 
J. L. Mitchell. Mrs. A. L. Jacobs. 

Charles M. Be Vier. Mrs. B. F. Reynolds. 

Campbell, N. Y. — Methodist Episcopal, 
Rev. B. F. Hitchcock. 

Glens Falls, N. Y.— -Friends' Church. 
Rev. William S. Wooton. Mrs. Docia S. Wooton. 

Gloversville, N. Y. — Methodist Episcopal. 
M. J. Seeber. 

Harlem, N. Y. — First Collegiate Reformed. 
Miss Mary P. Howell. Mrs. W. B. Osborn. 

Jamaica, N. Y. — First Methodist Episcopal. 

Rev. Thomas L. Poulson, D.D., 100 Fulton Street, Ja- 
maica, N. Y. 

Dr. Charles H. Smith. George W. Burnham, 

Le Roy, N. Y. — Universalist. 
Rev. C. L. Haskell. 

Long Island City, N. Y. — Baptist. 
Sara T. Randall. H. T. Randall. 

Marion, N, Y.— Reformed. 
J. Goossen. 

Mount Vernon, N. Y —First Methodist Episcopal. 
Mrs. Sarah Martin. 

German Methodist Episcopal. 
Rev. A. Flammann. 

New York City.— " All Souls." 
Rev. Heber Newton, D.D. 
Justus 0. Woods, 128 East Twelfth Street. 



APPENDIX. 383 

Baptist Ministers* Conference. 

N. B. Randall, D.D., Long Island City. 
M. H. Pogson, D.D., New York City, 
R. M. Harrison, D.D, 
Eev. F. Fletcher; 
Rev. J. B. English. 

Centenary Methodist Episcopal. 

John Gilmon. John Pennington. 

Mrs. John Gilmon. Mrs. John Pennington. 

Edwin M. Van Norman. 

First Reformed Episcopal. 
Robert L, Rudolph. 

Friends* Temperance Union. 
Joseph A. Bogardus. E. Eliza Hutchinson. 

Anna M. Jackson. Dr. Charles McDowell. 

William M. Jackson, Cynthia Knowlton. 

Charles M. Stabler. 

Madison Avenue Presbyterian. 
L. B. Bunnell. Mrs. L. B. Bunnell. 

Jane Street Methodist Episcopal. 

Hatfield Searles. Mrs. John C. Rose. 

John C. Rose. Daniel Van Wart. 

Ida Van Wart. 

Old John Street Methodist Episcopal. 

Rev. W. W. Bowdish, D.D John H. Denniston. 
G. W. Teale. J. W. Naughton. 

W. W. Carner. James Wright. 

St. Mary's. 
Rev. Joseph Reynolds, Jr., Rector. 



384: APPEKDIX. 

Seventh Avenue United Presbyterian, 

Elder William Myinnis. James Morrow. 

John Crawford. Miss Minnie Gilkerson. 

A. R. Bell. Miss R. Kirkpatric. 

Sixteenth Baptist. 

Samuel P. White. Miles E. Jenkins. 

Stephen Hubbard. Mrs. Sarah Thomas. 

Mrs. S. M. Smith. 

Temperance Committee op the New York Yearly 
Meeting op Friends. 

Robert S. Haviland. Aaron M. Powell. 

Phebe C. Wright. Anna M. Powell. 

John N. Shotwell. Martha C. Cocks. 

Joshua B. Washburn. Marcia C. Powell. 

Joseph A. Bogardus. 

Onancook, V a.— Methodist Episcopal. 
Rev. George W. Burke. 

Richmond, Ind.— Friends* Meeting. 
Allen Jay, Martha A. Jay. 

St. Johnsville, N. Y.— Christian. 
Rev. G. W. Morrow. 

Shippensbtjrg, Pa.— Presbyterian. 
J. C. Rummel. 

W t heeling, W. Va.— Methodist Episcopal. 
Rev. C. W. Cushing, D.D. 

Watertown District, So. Dak. — Ministers' Associa- 
tion of Methodist Episcopal Church. 

Rev. F. H. Wheeler, Brookings. 



APPENDIX. 385 

CHURCH TEMPERANCE SOCIETY, 

New England Department. 

Rev. S. H. Hilliard, Secretary, No, 5 Hamilton Place, 
Boston, Mass. 

Noano, Va. — Chickahominy Societies. 
Nelson Williams, Jr. 

CITIZENS' LEAGUE. 

New Milford, Conn. 

W. E. Starr. F. W. Kinney. 

COLLEGES 

Beaver Falls, Pa. — Geneva College Reformed 
Protestant Church. 

Rev. J. L. McCartney. 

Lebanon, Ohio. — National Normal University. 
Miss Emma Dailey. 

GOOD TEMPLARS. 
Right Worthy Grand Lodge, 

Samuel D. Hastings, Madison, Wis. 
W. Martin Jones, Rochester, N. Y. 

Grand Lodge, District of Columbia. 

Dr. C. N. Whiting. John R. Mahony. 

Hosea B. Moulton. 

Grand Lodge of Maine. 
Dr. S. T. Fuller, Kennebunk. 
Mrs. S. T. Fuller, 
Dr. John C. Stewart, York. 
Mrs. H. M. C. Estes, Waterville. 
Mrs. L, C. Partington, Portland, 



386 APPENDIX. 

Grand Lodge of New Jersey. 

J. Graham Humphrey, 206 Bank Street, Bridgeton, N. J. 
Dr. J. D. Polhemus, G. W. T. 

Grand Lodge, State of Rhode Island. 
W. G. Lawton, P. G. C. T. 
Irvin L. Blanchard, Dep. G. C.*T. 

Chatham, N. Y.— -" Chatham,. No. 211.** 
George R. Percy. 

East Hampton, N. Y. — "Charity, No. 589." 
F. E. Grimshaw. 

New York City. — " Franklin, No. 570/* 
D. M. Dickie. 

"Prohibition, No. 662." 
Jere. T. Brooks. W. W. Woolley, 

Norton Hill, N. Y. — " Excelsior. " 
Addison Winegard. 

Smyrna, Del,—-" Smyrna, No. 5." 

C. H. Register. 

TORRINGTON, CONN. — "EVENING STAR, No. 200." 

Rev. S. M. Hammond. Dr. B. St. John. 

LAW AND ORDER LEAGUES. 

Asbury Park and Ocean Grove, N. J. — w Citizens." 

J. Emory Barber. Rev. George Clarke. 

Philadelphia, Pa. 

Arthur M. Burton, 1312 Spruce Street. 
•Samuel C. Brown, 38 N. 19th Street. 
W. W. Wallace. 



APPENDIX. 387 

MEN'S CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE UNION. 

Huntington, N. Y. 
Rev. F. L. Masseck. 

MISCELLANEOUS. 
Baltimore, Md. 
John N. Parker. 

Brewster, N. Y. 
W. R. Price. 

Dayton, Ohio. 
Rev. C. L. Work, D.D. 

Englewood, N. J. 
Henry M. Hiue. 

Flushing, N. Y. 
John P. Ellis. 

Franklin, N. J. 
Rev. A. M. Palmer. 

Geneseo, N. Y. 
Rev. J. E. Kittredge, D.D. 

Glastonbury, Conn. 
Thomas H. L. Tallcott. 

Glenwood, N. J. 
Rev. T. M. Grenelle. W. H. Grenelle. 

Hartford, Conn. 
Wm. C. Bolles, 13 Village Street. Rev. S. B. Forbes. 

HONESDALE, PA. 

W. H. Dimmick. 



388 APPENDIX. 

HORNELLSVILLE, N. Y. 

M. E. Tuthill. 

Huntington, L. I., N. Y. 
Mrs. L. M. W. Horton. 

Hyde Park, Mass. 
Mrs. Mary H. Hunt. 

Jersey City, N. J. 

Mrs. A. B. Fisher, 134% Pacific Avenue. 

James Gumming. Mrs. Jennie Cumming. 

Keyport, N. J. 
W. Bedle. 

Lowville, N. Y. 
Mrs. John O'Donnell. 

MlDDLETOWN, DEL. 

Rev. Alfred Smith. 

MlDDLETOWN, N. J. 

Miss Mary Williams Osborn. Miss Harriette K. Patterson. 

MlDDLETOWN, N. Y. 

W. Van Kirk. 

Milton, Pa. 
S. W. Murray. 

Moorestown, N. J. 
C. B. Coles. 

Mount Vernon, N. Y. 

Mrs. N. M. Lock wood. Mrs. Martin. 

Mrs. J. LePage. Richard Lavery. 

Mrs. Dr. Latimer. C. E. Kimball, M. D. 

George K. Carroll. 



APPENDIX. 389 

Mystic Bridge, Conw. 
Thomas E. Packer. 

Newark, N. J. 
G. B. Tompkins. Mrs. Daniel Pearson. 

New Britain, Conn. 
John B. Smith. 

Newport, R. I. 
Rev. J. M. Craig. 

New York City. 

Alexander Law, 256 W. 40th Street. 
Rev. John C. Bliss, D.D., 423 W. 154th Street. 
Rev. Henry B. Hudson, 672 Lexington Avenue. 
Mrs. Henry B. Hudson, " " 

North Brookfield, Mass. 
Sarah Pellet. 

Norwich, N. Y. 

F...D. Parce. Dr. R. D. Thompson. 

N. S. Hull. Charles Peterson. 

Charles Johnson. 

Oak Park, III. 
Mrs. M. Kathryn Folbrecht. 

Oxford, N. J. 
Edmund T . Lukens. Mrs. Edmund T. Lukens. 

Peekskill, N. Y. 

Mrs. Hester Hughes. Mrs. Abby Baxter. 

Mrs. S. M. Wygant. 

Perry, N, Y. 
Rev. L. A. Stevens. 



390 APPEHDIX* 

Philadelphia, Pa. 

Joshua L. Baily. Benj. Mason, 2010 N. 21st Street. 

Martin I. J. Griffin. 

Richmond, Va. 
James Alexander Chiles. 

Rossville (S. I.), N. Y* 
Rev. N. Vansant. 

Strasburg, Pa. 
Geo. N. LeFevre. 

Surprise, Neb. 
• Rufus C. Bentley. 

Troy, Iowa, 
Rev. James Welch. 

Washington Manor, W. Va. 
Mrs; M. J. Washington. 

MISCELLANEOUS ORGANIZATIONS. 

American Tract Society. 

Rev. A. C. Frissell, Dist. Sec, 150 Nassau Street, New 
York City. 

National Religious Liberty Association. 
W. H. McKee, Sec, Washington, D. C. 

Suffrage League. 
Rev. Wm. Fielder, Huron, So. Dak. 

NEWSPAPERS. 

Chicago, III. — The Union Signal. 

George C. Hall. 



APPENDIX. 391 

Hartford, Conn. — The Connecticut Home. 
Rev. H. G. Smith. 

Needham, Mass. — 2 he Campaign, 
Frank Arthur Brown. 

New York City. — The American Sentinel. 
C. P. Bollman. 

The Voice. 
I. K. Funk, D.D. W. F. Copeland. 

E. J. Wheeler, A. M. C. D. F. Hoxie. 

A. W. Wagnalls. Rev. J. C. Fernald. 

R. J. Cuddihy. A. R. Heath. 

W. H. Ketler. 

Philadelphia, Pa. — Irish Catholic Benevolent Temperance 

Union Journal. 

Martin I. J. Griffin. 

Worcester, Mass. — Daily Times. 
J. R. Bartlett. 

NON-PARTISAN WOMAN'S CHRISTIAN TEMPER- 
ANCE UNION. 

National. 
Mrs. Ellen J. Phinney, President, Cleveland, Ohio. 
Mrs. C. Cornelia Alford, Treasurer, 315 Monroe Street, 
Brooklyn, N. Y. 

Mrs. Harriet G. Walker, Vice-President, Minneapolis, 
Minn. 

State of New Jersey. 

Mrs. E. T. Lukens, Prov. President, Oxford, N. J. 

Cleveland, Ohio. 
Miss Ann M. Edwards. Mrs. N. Coe Stuart. 



392 APPENDIX. 

Philadelphia County, Pa. 
Mrs. William Patten. 

PHYSICIANS. 

Flatbush, L. I., N. Y. 

Robert Boocock, M.D. 

New York City. 
Edwin Verres Wright, M.D. 

PREACHERS' MEETING. 

Philadelphia, Pa.— Methodist Episcopal. 

Rev. E. K. Young. 

Rev. Charles Roads. 

Rev. J. J. Timanus, Secretary. 

F. B. Lynch. 

C. M. Boswell. 

PROHIBITION ORG AN IZ ATIONS . —GENERAL. 

ASHAWAY AND POTTER HlLL, R. I. 

John J. Babcock. 

Rahway, N. J. 
D. K. Ryno. 

RlVERTON, N. J. 

David Henry Wright. 

PROHIBITION ORGANIZATIONS.— PARTY. 

National. 

John L, Thomas, Secretary. 

State op Alabama. 
John T. Tanner, Ch'm., Athens. 



APPENDIX. 393 

State of Delaware. 
Martin Ford, Smyrna. 

State of Maryland. 

*Hon. William Daniel, 208 North Calvert Street, Balti- 
more. 

Joshua Levering-. William Silverwood. 

Rev. W. M. Stray er, D.D. W. L. McCleary. 

C. S. Mosher. Professor John G. Robison. 

W. Frank Tucker. William Kleinle. 

*A. G. Eichelberger. *James R. Whitehurst. 

Dr. O. E. Janney. Frank V, Rhodes. 

*John N. Parker. Louis H. Miller. 

^Robert McLaughlin. 

State of Massachusetts, 
Deacon Edward Kendall, Cambridgeport. 

State of Minnesota. 
Hon. D. W. Edwards. 

State of New Jersey. 
Alwyn Ball, Jr., Rutherford. 

State of Texas. 
E. C. Heath, Rockwall. 

Accomac County, Va. 
George W. Mason. John S. Tyler. 

John W. Guy. H. L. Crocket. 

Essex County Committee, N. J. 
J. C Davis. Rev. A. H. Brown. 

C. Shepard. C W. Frome. 

R. J. S. White. Henry Brown. 

H. Bedell Crane, M.D. J. W. Arrowsmith. 
M. W. Baldwin. 



♦Present. 



394 APPENDIX. 

Brooklyn, N. Y.— Third Ward. 
A. L. Martin. H. B. Bishop. 

Seventeenth Ward. 
William E. Brown. D. L. Roper, 

Twenty- Fifth Ward. 
Caleb M. Peeile. A. R. Heath. 

Columbus, N. J. 
Rev. H. R. Hall. 

Cottage City, Mass. 
Horatio S. Berry. Mrs. Horatio Berry. 

Flatbush, N. T. 
Samuel B. Shaw. Robert Boocock, M.D. 

Lansingburgh, N. Y. 

Calvin E. Keacli. Nathaniel B. Powers. 

Mrs. Calvin E. Keach. Mrs. Nathaniel B. Powers. 

Morristown, N. J.— Morris County Young Men's 

Club. 
William M. Quimby. Peter W. Combs. 

T. M. Quayle. 

New Britain, Conn. 
Truman J. Spencer. 

New York City.— Ninth Assembly District. 
A. J. Brinkerhoff, 29 Morton Street. 
J. A. Bogardus, 2G9 West Eleventh Street. 
C. S. Lyon, 31 Eighth Avenue. 
Robert Blair, 306 West Fourth Street. 
August W. Pfluger, 65 Horatio Street. 
James Allen, 829 Greenwich Street. 



APPENDIX. 395 

Twenty-second Assembly District. 
J. T. Brooks. 

Philadelphia. Pa.— "League, No. 1." 
Dr. A. C. Rernbaugh. 

" North-Eastern." 
William F. Boyd. 

"Twentieth Ward." 
Jacob Grim. 

Rutherford, N. J. 

Rev. C. M. Anderson, Alwyn Ball, Jr. 

Charles H. Warner. Alexis McNulty. 

Sing Sing, N. Y. 

Stanton Cady. Eli Valentine. 

Joel Fowler. 

Syracuse, N. Y. 
C. A. Hammond. 

REFORM CLUBS. 
Rahway, N. J. 
Samuel Wilson. 

Flemington, N. J. 
Jacob Spangenberg. John F. Schenck. 

SOMERVILLE, N. J. 

Rev. Goyon Talmage. Jacob Boice. 

Arthur P. Sutplien. 

ROYAL TEMPLARS OF TEMPERANCE. 

Supreme Council of the United States. 

Rev. R. D. Munger, S. C.Waterloo, N. Y. 
Samuel Nelson, Sup. Sec, Buffalo, N. Y. 



396 APPENDIX. 

Charles Mills, G. C. of N. Y. 

Geo. T. Niver, Sup. Lecturer. 

H. H. Gurley, Grand Sec, of N. Y. 

Fort Edward, N. Y.— "No. 222." 
Rev. J. F. Yates. 

Marion, N. Y. 
H. S. Potter. 

Montgomery, N. Y.— " No. 173." 
Chauncey Brooks. 

Union, Hudson Co., N. J. 

Henry Bell, E. B. Young. 

Miss Maggie Bell. 

SONS OF TEMPERANCE. 

Paterson, N. J. 

Mrs. E. Skinner. Capt. Joel Johnson. 

Mr. Alexander Smith. 

POUGHKEEPSIE, N. Y. 

Geo. R. Brown. 

Roselle, N. J. 
Benj. F. Carpenter. 

SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. 
Brooklyn, N. Y.— "Tabernacle." 

Henry C. Perkins. John F. Sylvester. 

Mrs. Garford. John McDowell. 

Albert Wadhams. 

Catsetll, N. Y.— Methodist Episcopal. 

Frank II. Rass. 



APPEKDIX. 397 

Chesteb, Pa.— Friends' First Day School. 

Allen Flitcraft. 

Dunmore, Pa.— Presbyterian. 
Julius G. Bone. 

Hempstead, N, Y.— Methodist Episcopal. 
Mrs. C. Snedecker. 

Sioux Falls, S. Dak.— United Sunday Schools. 
Rev. Wm. J. Skillman. Rev. E. B. Meredith. 

York, Pa. — Temperance Society of First Presby- 
terian. 

Henry Small. 

TEMPERANCE ALLIANCES. 

State op Indiana. 

Dr. M. M. Parkhurst. 

State of Iowa. 
Rev. R. E. Flickioger. 

State of Maryland. 

Edwin Higgins, Pres., Baltimore, Md. 
Robert T. Smith. Edward H. Fowler. 

Rev. John Lanahan, D.D. John M. McClenahan. 
Rev. W. F. Speake. J. P. Hooper. 

Rev. J. E. Grammer, D.D. Rev. W. M. Alexander. 
Rev. R. H. Pullman, D.D. Rev. W. G. Herbert, Sec. 

TEMPERANCE SOCIETIES. 

National. 

Aaron M. Powell, Plainfield, N. J. 



398 APPENDIX. 

New York Marine Temperance Society. 

Richard Luce, Pres. Charles F. Swain, ex-Pres. 

Benjamin C. Miller. 

TEMPERANCE WORKERS' SOCIETY. 

Richmond, Va. 

Nelson Williams, Jr. 

TEMPERANCE UNIONS. 

State of Connecticut. 

Hon. J. A. Manning, Putnam, Pres, 

Prof. D. N. Camp, New Britain, Ex-Pres. 

Rev. J. H. James, Rockville, Sec. 

Mr. J. E. Woodbridge, Collinsville, Agent and Lecturer. 

Hon. Robbins Battell, Norfolk. 

Rev. Alpheus Winter, Middlefield. 

D anbury, Conn. 
Miss Hawley. 

Mendham, N. J. 
Francis Oliver. 

New York City. — " American." 

Stephen M. Wright. Matthew H. Pogson. 

Edwin F. Galloway. Joseph A. Bogardus. 

William T. Wardwell. 

" Friends." 
Joseph A. Bogardus. E. Eliza Hutchinson. 

Anna M. Jackson. Dr. Charles McDowell. 

Wm. M. Jackson. Cynthia Knowlton. 

Chas. M. Stabler. 

Wilkes-Barre, Pa. 
A. Ricketts. 



APPENDIX. 393 

TEMPLARS OF HO* OR AND TEMPERANCE. 
State of Connecticut. — Grand Temple. 
Thomas H. L. Tallcott, Glastonbury. 
Rev. J, W. Denton. 

State of Massachusetts. —Grand Temple. 
Joseph Austin, 5 Tremont Street, Room 36, Boston 
James Hicks, 32 Jay Street, Cainbridgeport. 
Rev. Wm. FulL, So. Braintree. 
Dr. D. B. Whittier, Fitchburg. 
M. W. Perry, Cambridgeport. 

State of New Jersey. — Grand Temple. 
Rev. C S. Woodruff, 35 Clay Street, Newark, N. J. 
Horton D. Williams. J. T. Moulton. 
Ezra V. Oakley. James Jamison. 

Louis Kei tcher. John Lightholder. 

Charles Macabee. John U. G. Reiley. 

Dr. J. D. Polhemus, G. W. T., Millburn, N. J. 

State of Pennsylvania. — Grand Temple. 
Rev. A. H. Semboyer, P. M. W. T. 

State of Rhode Island.— Grand Council. 
Hosea Q. Morton, Providence. 

Grand Temple. 
Geo. C Gates, P. G. W. T. 

UNION PARTY OF RHODE ISLAND. 

Cranston. 

James W. Williams. 

Pawtucket. 

Hon. Henry B. Met calf. 

Providence. 
Hon. EJwin C. Pierce. 



400 APPENDIX. 

UNION PROHIBITORY LEAGUE OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

COATESYILLE, Pa. 

Anna C. Tatnall. Anna L. Huston. 

Chas. L. Huston. 

UNION TEMPERANCE LEAGUE. 

Canton, Pa. 

L. R. Gleason. 

UNITED SOCIETIES. 

Cambridge, N. Y. — Cong., Pres.,Prot. Ep., and Meth. 
Ep. Churches, with W. C. T. U., and Y. M. C. A. 
Dr. Z. Cotton. 

Council Bluffs, Iowa. — All Churches, and W. C. T. 

Union. 
0. O. St. John. 

WOMAN'S CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE ALLIANCES. 
State of Pennsylvania. 
Mrs. H. C. Campbell President, Allegheny, Pa. 
Mrs. Ellen M. Watson, Secretary, Pittsburg, Pa. 

State of Illinois. 

Mrs. Lucinda B. Chandler, Vice-President, 346 Hoyne 
Avenue, Chicago. 

Lehigh County, Pa. 
Mrs. C. A. Douglass, President. 

WOMAN'S CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE UNIONS. 

International. — ' ' Superintendents. " 

Mrs. Mary II. Hunt, Scientific Temperance Instruction. 
Miss Emma L. Benedict, assistant for U.S.A. Scientific 
Temperance Instruction. 



appendix. 401 

National. 

Mrs. Ada M. Bittenbender, Legislation and Petitions. 
Sarah A. McClees, Work among Soldiers and Sailors. 

Organizer. 
Mrs. H. L. Bullock, Elmira, N. Y. 

State of Connecticut. 

Mrs. S. B. Forbes, President, Hartford. 

Mrs, M. M. Andrews, Corresponding Secretary, Stamford. 

State op Delaware. 

Mrs. Kate E. Smithers, Vice-President. 
Mrs. Jennie C. S. Price, Recording Secretary. 

District of Columbia. 
Mrs. Sarah. D. La Febra. Mrs. Annie Bovee. 

State of Massachusetts. 

Elizabeth S. Tobey, President, 36 Bromfield Street, 
Boston. 

Susan S. Fessenden, 

State of Nebraska. 
Mrs. Mary A. Hitchcock, President, Fremont, 

State of New Jersey. 

Mrs. J. C. Ellis, Corresponding Secretary, Newark. 
Mrs. K. E. Connah, " Temperance Literature" Passaic. 
Mrs. M. Helen Crane, "Press Work," Asbury Park. 
Mrs. A, Swan Brown, "Legislation and Petitions/' Pas- 
saic. 

State of Pennsylvania. 

Olive Pond Amies, Recording Secretary. 
Mrs. E. D. C. Mair. 
Mrs. Hugh Graham. 



402 APPENDIX. 

Columbia County, N. Y. 
Mrs, A. C. Percy, Vice-President* 

Franklin County, O. 

Mrs. Alice Peters, Columbus. 

Hudson County, N. J. 
Miss A. S. Wiggins, Corresponding Secretary, 
Mrs. L. M. Gardner, Treasurer. 

Kings County, N. Y. 

Mrs. IL S. Pritehard. M. S. Thompson. 

Mrs. M. W. Peele. Mrs. Ballard. 

Mrs. Phillips. 

Madison County, N. Y. 
Mrs. A. B. Campbell, Hamilton. 

Philadelphia County, Pa. 
Dr. C. M. Dodson, 1,856 North Twelfth Street, 
Mrs. S. G. McFarland. 

Altoona, Pa. 
Mrs. G. W. Strattan. 

Atlantic Highlands, N. J. 
Mrs. M„ C. Nobles. 

Brooklyn, K Y.— 4i No. 1." 
Mrs. K. E. Cleveland, President, 
Mrs. M. E. Perry, Vice-President. 
Mrs. J. Lewis. 
Mrs. P. Schermerhorn. 
Miss A. Allyne. 

" No. 2." 

Mrs. Sparks. Mrs. Terhune 

Mrs. Quail. Mrs. Kerr. 

Mrs. IL Gaston. Mrs, Colt. 



APPENDIX. 403 

Brooklyn, N. Y.— "No. 3," "On The Hill." 

Miss E.W. Greenwood, President, 151Remsen Street. 

Mrs. F. H. Williamson, Secretary, 16 Fort Greene Place. 

Mrs. J. C. Stewart, 376 Clermont Avenue. 

Mrs. B. J. Whitocre, 399a Grand Avenue. 

Mrs. Professor A. Durinage, 547 Lafayette Avenue. 

Miss Fannie Leonard, 35 Greene Avenue, Alternate. 

Mrs. C. J. Dorey, 289 Clermont Avenue, Alternate. 

"No. 6." 

Mrs. Hull, 689 Hancock Street. 
Mrs. Stonehill, 1,283 Madison Street. 
Mrs. Bush, 847 Gates Avenue. 
Mrs. Mapes, 63 Patchen Avenue. 
Mrs, Stone, 555 Monroe Street. 

"No. 7." 

Mrs. Jennie Chadwick, 4.98 Madison Street. 
Mrs. E. Powell. 
Mrs. John Berry. 

"No. 11." 

Mrs. P. C. Dukeshire. 

Chester, N. Y. 

Mrs. M. L. Winters, President. 
Miss Carrie R. Durland. 

Chester, Pa. 
Mrs. Sarah B. Flitcraft. 

Dundee, N. Y. 
Mrs. George Shattuck. 

Elizabeth, N. J.— "No. 2." 
Mrs. Sarah A. Ten Eyck. Mrs. Margaret K. Vail. 



404 APPENDIX. 

Harlem, N. Y. 

Mrs. H. Watson, President. 
Mrs. M. R. Douglass, Secretary. 
Mrs. J. Smith. 
Mrs. K. Wallace. 
Mrs. Anna Ivins. 
Mrs. Langdon. 

Jersey City, N. J.—" Lafayette." 
Mrs. K. Allison, 32 Suidam Avenue. 

" Palisade. " 
Mrs. Dupuy. Anna Raymond. 

Moorestown, N. J. 
Mary M. Coles. 

Mount Vernon, N. Y. 
Mrs. L. E. Trott, President. 

Mullica Hill, N. J. 
Mrs. Jonathan Colson. 

New Rochelle, N. Y. 
Mrs. John New. 

New York City.— " No. 3." 

Mrs. E. Francis Lord. Mrs. Charles L. Hunt. 

Mrs. A. M. Smith. 

" MORNINGSIDE. " 

Mrs. James Eustis, Secretary, 300 West 130th Street. 

Miss Anna C. H. Christensen. 

Mrs. James Shipman. 

Mrs. M. J. Caldwell. 

Miss Josephine M. Ryder. 

Mrs. E. H. Hall. 



APPENDIX. 405 

"Washington Heights." 
Mrs, E. B. Treat, St. Nicholas Avenue and 158th Street. 

" West Side, No. 14." 

Mrs. M. Hatfield Searles, President. 
Mrs. F. Cheney. 
Mrs. E. E. De Graff. 

Passaic, N. J. 
Mrs. A. Swan Brown. A. L. Graham. 

Mrs. C. C. Conah. Mrs. Dr. Church. 

POUGHKEEPSIE, N. Y. 

Mrs. George R. Brown, President. 
Mrs. Oakley Osborne. 
Mrs. R. A. Thurston. 
Mrs. M. C. Jillson. 

JRahway, N. J. 

Mrs. J. U. Underbill, President. 
Mrs. Samuel Wilson. 

Richmond, Ind. 
Mrs. Martha A. Jay. 

Richmond and Hopkinton, R. I. 
Anson Greene. 

Roselle, N. J. 
Theodocia E. Carpenter, President. 
E. B. V. Carpenter. 

Sing Sing, N. Y. 
Miss Hannah A. Tompkins. 

Sykacuse, N. Y.— " No. 2." 
Mrs. R. A. Esmond. 



4:06 APPENDIX. 

Toledo, O. — ''First." 
Mrs. M. F. Watson. 

Union, N. J. 

Mr. Bell. Mrs. J. Copeland. 

Mrs. Bell. Mr. E. B. Young. 

Mr. I. W. Gowen. Miss M. Bell. 

Mrs. I. W. Gowen. Miss L. M. Gardner. 

VOORHEESVILLE, N. Y. 

Rev. G. W. Sisum, New Scotland, N. Y. 

West Hoboken, N. J. 
Mrs. Bartlett Page. Mrs. Demarest. 

Mrs. Humphrey. Miss Pitman. 

Mrs. Allen. Mrs. Wheeler. 

YOUNG WOMAN'S CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE 

UNION. 

West Hoboken, N. J. 

Anna Wiggins. 



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